to my room,
shook hands with me in a friendly manner, bidding me expect him on the
morrow.

Certainly, I decided, Herr von Francius was quite unlike any one I had
ever seen before; and how awfully cool he was and self-possessed. I
liked him well, though.

The next morning Herr von Francius gave me my first lesson, and after
that I had one from him nearly every day. As teacher and as acquaintance
he was, as it were, two different men. As teacher he was strict, severe,
gave much blame and little praise; but when he did once praise me, I
remember, I carried the remembrance of it with me for days as a ray of
sunshine. He seemed never surprised to find how much work had been
prepared for him, although he would express displeasure sometimes at its
quality. He was a teacher whom it was impossible not to respect, whom
one obeyed by instinct. As man, as acquaintance, I knew little of him,
though I heard much--idle tales, which it would be as idle to repeat.
They chiefly related to his domineering disposition and determination to
go his own way and disregard that of others. In this fashion my life
became busy enough.

CHAPTER X.

"LOHENGRIN."

As time went on, the image of Eugen Courvoisier, my unspoken of,
unguessed at, friend, did not fade from my memory. It grew stronger. I
thought of him every day--never went out without a distinct hope that I
might see him; never came in without vivid disappointment that I had not
seen him. I carried three thalers ten groschen so arranged in my purse
that I could lay my hand upon them at a moment's notice, for as the days
went on it appeared that Herr Courvoisier had not made up his accounts,
or if he had, had not chosen to claim that part of them owed by me.

I did not see him. I began dismally to think that after all the whole
thing was at an end. He did not live at Elberthal--he had certainly
never told me that he did, I reminded myself. He had gone about his
business and interests--had forgotten the waif he had helped one spring
afternoon, and I should never see him again. My heart fell and sunk with
a reasonless, aimless pang. What did it, could it, ought it to matter to
me whether I ever saw him again or not? Nothing, certainly, and yet I
troubled myself about it a great deal. I made little dramas in my mind
of how he and I were to meet, and how I would exert my will and make him
to take the money. Whenever I saw an unusually large or handsome house,
I instantly fell to