white figure standing in the distance
behind a poplar-tree, looking at me in amazement; but in an instant it
had turned and fled through the dim garden toward the house so quickly
that in the moonlight it seemed to glide. "It was she, herself!" I
exclaimed, and my heart throbbed with delight; I recognized her on the
instant by her pretty little fleet feet. It was unfortunate that in
clambering over the gate I had slightly twisted my ankle, and had to
limp along for a minute or two before I could run after her toward
the house. In the meanwhile the doors and windows had been closed. I
knocked modestly, listened, and then knocked again. I seemed to hear
low laughter and whispering within the house, and once I was almost
sure that a pair of bright eyes peeped between the jalousies in the
moonlight. But finally all was silent.

"She does not know that it is I," I thought; I took out my fiddle, and
promenaded to and fro on the path before the house and sang the song
of the Lady fair and played over all my songs that I had been wont
to play on lovely summer nights in the castle garden, or on the
bench before the toll-house so that the sound should reach the castle
windows. But it was all of no use; no one stirred in the entire house.
Then I put away my fiddle sadly, and seated myself upon the door-step,
for I was very weary with my long march. The night was warm; the
flower-beds before the house sent forth a delicious fragrance, and a
fountain somewhere in the depths of the garden plashed continuously. I
thought dreamily of azure flowers, of dim, green, lovely, lonely spots
where brooks were rippling and gay birds singing, until at last I fell
sound asleep.

When I awoke the fresh air of morning was playing over me; the birds
were already awake and twittering in the trees around, as if they were
making game of me. I started up and looked about; the fountain in
the garden was still playing, but nothing was to be heard within the
house. I peeped through the green blinds into one of the rooms, where
I could see a sofa and a large round table covered with gray linen.
The chairs were all standing against the wall in perfect order;
the blinds were down at all the windows, as if the house had been
uninhabited for example, with many a loving thought of my fair,
distant home.

Meanwhile, the painter had arranged near the window one of the frames
upon which a large piece of paper was stretched. An old hovel was
cleverly drawn in ch