months; I have known Madame
Blumenthal for less than twenty-four hours."

"Very true. But when you found this letter of yours on your place at
breakfast, did you seem for a moment to see Madame Blumenthal sitting
opposite?"

"Opposite?"

"Opposite, my dear fellow, or anywhere in the neighbourhood. In a word,
does she interest you?"

"Very much!" he cried, joyously.

"Amen!" I answered, jumping up with a laugh. "And now, if we are to see
the world in a month, there is no time to lose. Let us begin with the
Hardtwald."

Pickering rose, and we strolled away into the forest, talking of lighter
things. At last we reached the edge of the wood, sat down on a fallen
log, and looked out across an interval of meadow at the long wooded waves
of the Taunus. What my friend was thinking of I can't say; I was
meditating on his queer biography, and letting my wonderment wander away
to Smyrna. Suddenly I remembered that he possessed a portrait of the
young girl who was waiting for him there in a white-walled garden. I
asked him if he had it with him. He said nothing, but gravely took out
his pocket-book and drew forth a small photograph. It represented, as
the poet says, a simple maiden in her flower--a slight young girl, with a
certain childish roundness of contour. There was no ease in her posture;
she was standing, stiffly and shyly, for her likeness; she wore a short-
waisted white dress; her arms hung at her sides and her hands were
clasped in front; her head was bent downward a little, and her dark eyes
fixed. But her awkwardness was as pretty as that of some angular seraph
in a mediaeval carving, and in her timid gaze there seemed to lurk the
questioning gleam of childhood. "What is this for?" her charming eyes
appeared to ask; "why have I been dressed up for this ceremony in a white
frock and amber beads?"

"Gracious powers!" I said to myself; "what an enchanting thing is
innocence!"

"That portrait was taken a year and a half ago," said Pickering, as if
with an effort to be perfectly just. "By this time, I suppose, she looks
a little wiser."

"Not much, I hope," I said, as I gave it back. "She is very sweet!"

"Yes, poor girl, she is very sweet--no doubt!" And he put the thing away
without looking at it.

We were silent for some moments. At last, abruptly--"My dear fellow," I
said, "I should take some satisfaction in seeing you immediately leave
Homburg."

"Immediately?"

"To-day--as soon as