n a sudden Doertje Elverdink was standing in his corner
close beside him. With a voice that was melody itself, the fair one
said, "I do not remember, sir, having seen you anywhere before our
meeting here at Berlin; and yet I find in your features, in all your
manner, so much that seems familiar. Nay, it is as if in times long
past we had been very intimate, but in a distant country and in other
relations. I entreat you, free me from this uncertainty; and, if I am
not deceived by some resemblance, let us renew the friendship, which
floats in dim recollection like some delightful dream."

George Pepusch felt strangely at this address; his breast heaved, his
forehead glowed, and a shudder ran through all his limbs as if he had
lain in a violent fever. Though this might mean nothing else than that
he was over head and ears in love, yet there was another cause for this
perturbation, which robbed him of all speech, and almost of his senses.
When Doertje Elverdink spoke of her belief that she had known him long
before, it seemed to him as if another image was presented to his
inward mind as in a magic lantern, and he perceived a long removed
SELF, which lay far back in time. The idea, that by much meditation had
assumed a clear and firm shape, flashed up in this moment, and this was
nothing less than that Doertje Elverdink was the Princess Gamaheh,
daughter of King Sekakis, whom he had loved in a remote period, when he
flourished as the thistle, Zeherit. It was well that he did not
communicate this fancy to other folks, as he would most probably have
been reckoned mad, and confined as such; although the fixed idea of a
partial maniac may often, perhaps, be nothing more than the illusions
of a preceding existence.

"Good God! you seem dumb, sir!" said the little-one, touching George's
breast with the prettiest finger imaginable; and from the tip of it
shot an electric spark into his heart, and he awoke from his
stupefaction. He seized her hand in a perfect ecstasy, covered it with
burning kisses, and exclaimed, "Heavenly, angelic creature!" &c. &c.
&c. The kind reader will easily imagine all that George Pepusch would
exclaim in a such a moment. It is sufficient to say, that she received
his love-protests as kindly as could be wished; and that the fateful
moment, in the corner of Leuwenhock's hall, brought forth a love affair
that first raised the good George Pepusch up to heaven, and then again
plunged him into hell. As he hap