gher dramatic life, than where the author of
'Deodata,' in his preface, finds fault with Opera because it is
unnatural that people should sing on the stage, and next goes on to
explain that he has been at pains to introduce the singing, which is
incidental to it, always in a natural manner."

"_De mortuis nil nisi bonum_," said Cyprian, "let the dead repose in
peace."

"And all the more," said Lothair, "that I see midnight is close at
hand, and he might avail himself of that circumstance to give us a box
or two on the ear (as he is said to have done to his critics in life)
with his invisible fist."

Just then the carriage which Lothair had sent for on account of
Theodore's still invalid condition, came rolling up, and the friends
went back in it to town.

SECTION SIXTH.

It so happened that some irresistible psychic force had impelled
Sylvester back to town, although, as a rule, nothing in the world would
induce him to leave the country at the time of year when the weather
was at its pleasantest. A little theatrical piece which he had written
was going to be produced, and it seems an impossibility for an author
to miss a first performance of one of his pieces, even though he may
have to contend with a world of trouble and anxiety in connection with
it. Moreover, Vincent, too, had emerged from the crowd, so that, for
the time at least, the Serapion Brotherhood was fairly reestablished;
they held their meeting in the same pleasant public-garden where they
had last assembled.

Sylvester was not like the same man; he was in better spirits and more
talkative than when he was last seen, and taking him all over, like one
who had experienced some piece of great good fortune.

"Was it not well," said Lothair, "that we put off our meeting until our
friend's piece had been produced? otherwise we should have found our
good brother preoccupied, uninterested in our conversation, oppressed
as with a heavy burden. His piece would have been haunting him like
some distressful spectre, but now that it has burst its chrysalis and
fluttered away like a beautiful butterfly into the empyrean, and has
not sued for universal favour in vain, everything is clear and bright
within him. He stands glorified in the radiance of deserved applause
which has fallen so richly to his share, and we won't, for a moment,
take it ill of him that he looks down upon us with the least bit of
pardonable pride, seeing t