candle, hastily turned their attention. Lifting the green veil, to see
what invaluable it hid, they descried there, amid down and rich white
wrappages, no Pitt Diamond or Hapsburg Regalia, but, in the softest
sleep, a little red-coloured Infant! Beside it, lay a roll of gold
Friedrichs, the exact amount of which was never publicly known; also a
_Taufschein_ (baptismal certificate), wherein unfortunately nothing
but the Name was decipherable; other document or indication none
whatever.

'To wonder and conjecture was unavailing, then and always thenceforth.
Nowhere in Entepfuhl, on the morrow or next day, did tidings transpire
of any such figure as the Stranger; nor could the Traveller, who had
passed through the neighbouring Town in coach-and-four, be connected
with this Apparition, except in the way of gratuitous surmise.
Meanwhile, for Andreas and his wife, the grand practical problem was:
What to do with this little sleeping red-coloured Infant? Amid
amazements and curiosities, which had to die away without external
satisfying, they resolved, as in such circumstances charitable prudent
people needs must, on nursing it, though with spoon-meat, into
whiteness, and if possible into manhood. The Heavens smiled on their
endeavour: thus has that same mysterious Individual ever since had a
status for himself in this visible Universe, some modicum of victual
and lodging and parade-ground; and now expanded in bulk, faculty and
knowledge of good and evil, he, as HERR DIOGENES TEUFELSDROeCKH,
professes or is ready to profess, perhaps not altogether without
effect, in the new University of Weissnichtwo, the new Science of
Things in General.'

Our Philosopher declares here, as indeed we should think he well
might, that these facts, first communicated, by the good Gretchen
Futteral, in his twelfth year, 'produced on the boyish heart and fancy
a quite indelible impression. Who this Reverend Personage,' he says,
'that glided into the Orchard Cottage when the Sun was in Libra, and
then, as on spirit's wings, glided out again, might be? An
inexpressible desire, full of love and of sadness, has often since
struggled within me to shape an answer. Ever, in my distresses and my
loneliness, has Fantasy turned, full of longing (_sehnsuchtsvoll_), to
that unknown Father, who perhaps far from me, perhaps near, either way
invisible, might have taken me to his paternal bosom, there to lie
screened from many a woe. Thou beloved Father, dost th