it,
she will toss it into the dusty limbo of her other romances. She will
let him dangle, but she will let him drop!"

"Upon my word," I cried, with heat, "if she does, she will be a very
unprincipled little creature!"

Niedermeyer shrugged his shoulders. "I never said she was a saint!"

Shrewd as I felt Niedermeyer to be, I was not prepared to take his simple
word for this event, and in the evening I received a communication which
fortified my doubts. It was a note from Pickering, and it ran as
follows:--

"My Dear Friend--I have every hope of being happy, but I am to go to
Wiesbaden to learn my fate. Madame Blumenthal goes thither this
afternoon to spend a few days, and she allows me to accompany her.
Give me your good wishes; you shall hear of the result.
E. P."

One of the diversions of Homburg for new-comers is to dine in rotation at
the different tables d'hote. It so happened that, a couple of days
later, Niedermeyer took pot-luck at my hotel, and secured a seat beside
my own. As we took our places I found a letter on my plate, and, as it
was postmarked Wiesbaden, I lost no time in opening it. It contained but
three lines--

"I am happy--I am accepted--an hour ago. I can hardly believe it's
your poor friend
E. P."

I placed the note before Niedermeyer; not exactly in triumph, but with
the alacrity of all felicitous confutation. He looked at it much longer
than was needful to read it, stroking down his beard gravely, and I felt
it was not so easy to confute a pupil of the school of Metternich. At
last, folding the note and handing it back, "Has your friend mentioned
Madame Blumenthal's errand at Wiesbaden?" he asked.

"You look very wise. I give it up!" said I.

"She is gone there to make the major follow her. He went by the next
train."

"And has the major, on his side, dropped you a line?"

"He is not a letter-writer."

"Well," said I, pocketing my letter, "with this document in my hand I am
bound to reserve my judgment. We will have a bottle of Johannisberg, and
drink to the triumph of virtue."

For a whole week more I heard nothing from Pickering--somewhat to my
surprise, and, as the days went by, not a little to my discomposure. I
had expected that his bliss would continue to overflow in brief
bulletins, and his silence was possibly an indication that it had been
clouded. At last I wrote to his hotel at Wiesbaden, but received no
answer; whereupon, as m