I had a fancy that the houses were marshaled in battalions,
as if by an officer on parade, and that when he gave the word 'March,'
they would suddenly walk away in step, like the soldiers on the parade
ground. I explained this to my sister, and often when we were in our
own street she would call out 'March!' to see if the long row of houses
would not begin to move. However, we liked the old part of Berlin
better, where the streets, with their capricious and serpent-like
windings, reminded us of the crooked alleys of Moscow. The streamlets
of the Spree exercised a powerful attraction over us. Blondchen thought
they played hide-and-seek with children, who would run through the
streets to search for them. They came suddenly into sight where one
would least expect to see them, in the yard of a house in the
Werderschen Market, behind an apparently innocent archway on the
Hausvogtei Platz, at the backs of houses whose fronts betrayed no
existence of any water near. My sister so often longed to catch sight
of the oily satiny sheen of the river's light in unsuspected places
that she would drag me off to note her discoveries. She wanted all the
varying sights of the Spree, which showed itself at the ends of alleys,
or in courtyards or behind houses, suddenly to appear to her, so that
she might have the right to first name her discovery."

He was silent awhile, deep in memories of the past. Then he said: "If I
have lingered over these childish reminiscences it is because I have
not my Blondchen any longer. On one of our wandering excursions we were
caught in a heavy shower of rain, and became wet through. My sister was
taken ill with rheumatism, and eight days afterward we buried her in
the churchyard."

The mother soon followed Blondchen. Sorrow over the child, and
homesickness, combined with weak health, proved too great a strain.
Wilhelm remained alone with the dispirited and sorrowful old father,
whom he never left except for his three years' military service in the
field. Then the father, to shorten the time of separation, accompanied
the army (in spite of his seventy years) as an ambulance assistant. The
following year he died, and Wilhelm was left alone in the world.

Loulou was not wanting in heart, and she had as much feeling as it is
proper for an educated German girl to show. By an involuntary movement,
she held out her hand, which Wilhelm caught and kissed. They both grew
very red, and she looked wistfully at him w