of it. Let's talk about
something else.'

"Alexander agreed, and they set to work to carry on a conversation,
lightsomely fluttering from topic to topic. In this they were so far
successful that they talked about utterly trivial matters with a great
expenditure of noise. But everything they said had such a strange
character and peculiar tone, never in the least appropriate to the
subject, that the words seemed to be mere cyphers with some hidden,
mysterious meaning. They determined to celebrate this day of their
reunion with a bowl of cold punch; and at the third glass of it they
fell weeping into each other's arms. The young lady rose, went to the
railing above the stream, and stood there pensively gazing at the
clouds.

'Swift-sailing cloudlets
Borne by the breezes,'

quoted Marzell, in accents of gentle sorrow. But Severin banged his
glass on the table, and spoke of a battle-field which he had seen by
the light of a full-moon, and of the pale corpses that had gazed at him
with eyes instinct with life.

"'God be about us!' cried Alexander. 'What's the matter with you,
brother?'

"The girl sat down again at the table. With one impulse the three
fellows jumped up and ran a sort of race to the rail she had been
leaning on. Alexander depassed the other two by a powerful leap over a
couple of chairs, leant upon the spot where the girl had been standing,
and stuck to it like a leech, though the other two tried to shove him
away, on pretext of embracing him affectionately. Severin spoke with
great solemnity of the clouds and the way they were floating, and
described, louder than was necessary, their shapes and figures.
Marzell, without listening to him, compared Bellevue to a Roman villa;
and, although he had just come back by way of Switzerland, said the
flat, bare, ugly country, with the lightning-conductors on the
powder-magazines--which he called 'masts surmounted by gleaming
stars'--was beautiful and romantic. Alexander contented himself with
saying it was a lovely evening, and the Webersche Zelt a charming spot.

"The family seemed to be preparing for a move. The old gentleman
knocked the ashes out of his pipe, the young lady put away her
knitting, and the boy sought--and called for--his cap, which, after a
little, the busy house poodle (who had been playing with it) brought
and laid down at his feet, and then stood looking up in his face, eager
to be of further service, and