te."

"He must eat a rice mess this evening," said Godfred.

"Can you endure music, Peter Florval?" cried the musician, eagerly
addressing the State Counsellor; "Many nerves are unable to support it.
Now we are coming to the conclusion. Forte! forte! bound! continue!
what do you think? Ah, now comes, the most difficult passage. That is a
composition that requires fingering and skill. It flies right and left.
Now I play over with my right hand in the bass, now the into the
treble. See, now I work away crossing hands; now with all ten fingers!
and again! and again! I need indeed take my elbows to help. Over, over!
dispatch! Ah, it is admirably written. Do you not think so, gossip?"

"At first though he must only be allowed to run with caution," said
Godfred.

"Still those doggish vagaries?" said Dubois, sullenly, "banish, I pray,
those four-legged thoughts from your mind, and for once live entirely
for art."

"I must afterwards though cut the divining-rod," said Godfred in a loud
voice to himself.

"Stop!" cried the long musician, as he jumped up, "you here remind me
of a thought, I have wished for some time to impart to you. Do you know
what to do with such things?"

"So, so," said Godfred, "I discovered my well for myself by means of
it, and thus served several neighbours."

"And treasures!" cried Dubois.

"Water," said the surgeon, "is sufficiently precious; I have never
attempted anything else."

"You know, perhaps," continued the gossip; "It is not yet ten years
ago, since Jacob Aymar, from Dauphine discovered by means of his
divining-rod, a murder that had been committed long before. The story
created the greatest sensation in Paris and at Lyons at the time. I was
then in Paris with my brother, the universally celebrated great doctor,
and saw myself the simple peasant, who could perform such miraculous
deeds. My brother, who is a very speculating philosopher, repaired
hither at this extraordinary discovery, and employed all sorts of
remarkable essays, so-called experiments in the presence of persons of
distinction, and they succeeded admirably. But the rod must be cut from
a hazel branch at midnight, at the full moon, and without uttering a
word at the time."

"That is superstition," said Godfred, "any rod can answer the purpose,
if the hand possesses the gift."

"What do you know," exclaimed the former, hastily, "about Philosophia
Occulta? you are always on the side of the sceptics, in everything. D