beautiful and spacious garden, when she
coaxingly passed her hands over my face, and tried to smooth the angry
frown from my brow; then I awoke, and quickly perceived that
notwithstanding all the wisdom I had possessed in my dream, I had not
become one whit the wiser than I was when I went to bed.

"But don't take the matter so much to heart, child," he continued, as
Balder remained silent. "I can assure you that a hopeless passion
is no such terrible misfortune. I am perfectly positive that I shall
never see her again, but how long it will be before I think of
something else, I can't say. Yet it is one of the most delightful
experiences--this gentle consuming fire, this sacred defencelessness,
this introspection, joined to the consciousness of external
impressions; it is the true, immanent, and transcendent contradiction,
which is the veritable secret of all life, and of which man, with his
accustomed eminently respectable but imperfect knowledge of our being,
is seldom so keenly conscious. Some day, child, you too will experience
it, and then for the first time you will fully understand what I mean.
The head does not appear to work at all; the mill of ideas is stopped;
it has no more grist to grind. Very different nerve-centres appear to
have assumed control, and when I have overcome the first sense of
strangeness, it will be a very interesting psychological task--"

Here the door was thrown open, and a new visitor interrupted our
philosopher's attempt to make a virtue of necessity, and at least to
render useful to the cause of science, the sorrows of his heart.

CHAPTER V.

The new comer was a tall and very broad-shouldered young man, who
carried a travelling-satchel and a shawl thrown over his shoulder;
unceremoniously tossing a faded brown felt hat on Balder's bed, he
nodded, and smiling called out a "good morning" to the brothers. The
first impression made by the ash-colored face, furrowed by several
scars, and the somewhat crooked mouth, was not particularly favorable.
An expression of bitterness or malice dwelt about the strongly cut
lips, and the teeth, which, in speaking, were fully revealed, increased
the fierce, unamiable look. But when the countenance was in repose, the
melancholy expression of the eyes predominated over the more ignoble
features, and the brow beneath the short bristling hair seemed to have
been developed by grave mental labor. His movements were r