expected and after saying that unfortunately the written instructions,
which Doctor Melchior had given him at the same time with the box, had
fallen a victim to the flames, he broke the seals that had fastened the
package for so many years, and Rosalie clapped her hands when the
beautiful casket of carved ivory mounted in gold came to view.

It was opened with great care, and Zeno took from it a paper which lay on
a rose-coloured silk pad and on which Doctor Melchior had written in
large Roman characters: "To my son Zeno Ueberhell. To be used according
to the directions found in the letter accompanying the casket, afterwards
to be given to his eldest son on his twenty-fifth birthday, and thus
always to be handed down from first-born to first-born, to the last one,
which, please Heaven, will be to the end of Time, in order that the
phial, destined to change the aspect of human life, and lead it to its
true salvation, may remain forever a priceless heirloom in the Ueberhell
family. By means of the accompanying prescription every experienced
chemist will be able to make the elixir in any desired quantity. My
blessing rest upon you, my son, and upon every Ueberhell who, on his
twenty-fifth birthday--that is having reached maturity--shall receive
this little bottle and regard it as the most precious of all his
possessions."

This inscription Melchior's son read with trembling voice, and he was so
deeply moved by the solemnity of his father's words that he did not
perceive his young wife lift the cushion from the casket, examine the
phial with curiosity, and then, having removed the glass stopper with
difficulty, hold the bottle to her dainty little nose.

But she closed the phial as quickly as she had opened for she experienced
so strange a sensation, her blood beat through her veins so oddly, that,
impelled by some inner force, and regardless of the presence of Herr
Winckler, and the tact which she usually displayed, she cried out: "So
that, then, is your inheritance! A bit of coloured glass which one could
buy in the street for a trifle, and a few brown drops of some stuff which
no one knows the use of, now that the directions are burned."

As Zeno, surprised at these shrill notes which he now heard for the first
time, in his wife's voice, tried to pacify her, saying that no doubt the
liquid possessed marvellous properties, and that they could not blame his
sainted father because an unlucky accident had destroyed his e