very slowly in order to grow cool and
collected, but the singular form I had seen never left me for a moment.
I was so feverishly abstracted at the home tea-table that my good
mother grew alarmed, and sent me early to bed. When I went to my class
the following morning, I found I had not prepared my Plato, and was
obliged to put up with many mocking remarks from the lecturer on
history in consequence of my having pushed the date of the battle of
Cannae a good century too far back. The day was wet, and I lounged down
the street full of depression and _ennui_. Sebastian kept himself out
of sight. I stood an hour at the window on which he had drummed "_Non
piu andrai_" the day before, and looked meditatively at the rain-pools
in the street below, out of which the sparrows were picking a few
oat-husks. I heard the horses stamping in the stable, and the
stable-boy whistling Weber's "Jungfern Kranz" and found myself suddenly
whistling it too, and stamping the while. I felt so absurd and pitiable
that tears nearly came. At length I armed myself with an umbrella, and
ran out into the wet and windy street.

I had been invited to a party at a friend's house for that evening, but
I had an hour to spare. And this hour, I thought, could not be better
spent than in sauntering through the street where the confectioner's
shop stood, and patrolling a short time on the other side to watch who
went in. As it was already growing dusk I felt pretty well concealed
under my umbrella, but all the same I was conscious of a certain
agreeable mysterious sensation as though playing an important part in
some deed of honour. In point of fact, however, there was nothing
remarkable to be seen. The shop seemed to be pretty well frequented,
but only by a humble class of customers, children, schoolboys intent
upon devouring their pocket money, coughing old women going in for a
penny-worth of lozenges. Dangerous young men did not seem aware that
behind those brown blinds lurked a dangerous young girl.

Much relieved by the result of my observation, I finally crossed
the street just to find out whether there were any possibility of
peeping in. The gas was lit in both rooms, but the shop-window was so
well-protected that one could see nothing whatever from without. But on
the other hand the blind of the reading-room had a crack just across
the back of the angler. So I stood and looked in, a good deal ashamed
of myself for spying. And there, on the very sam