hat,
three or four days later, some woodcutters who were descending the
mountain had found her sickle and her apron a few steps from the
cavern.

From that moment it was evident to everyone that the skeleton which
had fallen from the cascade, on the subject of which Haselnoss had
turned such fine phrases, was no other than that of Louise Mueller. The
poor girl had doubtless been drawn into the gulf by the mysterious
influence which almost daily overcame weaker beings!

What could this influence be? None knew. But the inhabitants of
Spinbronn, superstitious like all mountaineers, maintained that the
devil lived in the cavern, and terror spread in the whole region.

* * * * *

Now one afternoon in the middle of the month of July, 1802, my cousin
undertook a new classification of the insects in his bandboxes. He had
secured several rather curious ones the preceding afternoon. I was
with him, holding the lighted candle with one hand and with the other
a needle which I heated red-hot.

Sir Thomas, seated, his chair tipped back against the sill of a
window, his feet on a stool, watched us work, and smoked his cigar
with a dreamy air.

I stood in with Sir Thomas Hawerburch, and I accompanied him every day
to the woods in his carriage. He enjoyed hearing me chatter in
English, and wished to make of me, as he said, a thorough gentleman.

The butterflies labeled, Dr. Weber at last opened the box of the
largest insects, and said:

"Yesterday I secured a magnificent horn beetle, the great _Lucanus
cervus_ of the oaks of the Hartz. It has this peculiarity--the right
claw divides in five branches. It's a rare specimen."

At the same time I offered him the needle, and as he pierced the
insect before fixing it on the cork, Sir Thomas, until then impassive,
got up, and, drawing near a bandbox, he began to examine the spider
crab of Guiana with a feeling of horror which was strikingly portrayed
on his fat vermilion face.

"That is certainly," he cried, "the most frightful work of the
creation. The mere sight of it--it makes me shudder!"

In truth, a sudden pallor overspread his face.

"Bah!" said my tutor, "all that is only a prejudice from
childhood--one hears his nurse cry out--one is afraid--and the
impression sticks. But if you should consider the spider with a strong
microscope, you would be astonished at the finish of his members, at
their admirable arrangement, and even at their elega