Vincent will emerge from the billows again, no doubt, and chirp his
little song."

"Have it your own way," said Lothair, rather more gently than before;
"only don't expect _me_ to have anything to do with it. However, I
promise that I will be present when you assemble Serapiontically; and,
as Theodore ought to be in the open air as much as possible, I suggest
that we hold our meeting out of doors."

So they fixed upon the last day of May--which was only a few days
off--for the time; and on a pretty public-garden in the neighbourhood,
not too much frequented, for the place, of their next Serapiontic
meeting.

A thunderstorm, passing quickly over, and merely sprinkling the trees
and bushes with a few drops of Heaven's balsam, had relieved the sultry
oppressiveness of the day. The beautiful garden was lying all still, in
the most exquisite brightness. The delicious perfume of leaves and
flowers streamed through it, while the birds, twittering and trilling
in happiness, went rustling amongst the branches, and bathed themselves
in the bedewed leafage.

"How refreshed I feel, through and through!" Theodore cried, when the
friends had sate themselves down in the shade of some thickly-foliaged
lime-trees; "every trace of illness, down to the most infinitesimal,
has left me. I feel as if a redoubled life had dawned on me, in my
active consciousness of reciprocity of action between me and the
external. A man must have been as ill as I have been to be capable of
this sensation, which, strengthening mind and body, must surely be (as
I feel it to be) the true life-elixir which the Eternal Power, the
ruling World-spirit, administers to us, directly and without
intermediation. The vivifying breath of Nature is breathing out of my
own breast. I seem to be floating in that glorious blue Heaven which is
vaulted over us, with every burden lifted away from me!"

"This," said Ottmar, "shows that you are quite well again, beloved
friend; and all glory to the Eternal Power which fitted you out with an
organisation strong enough to survive an illness like that which you
have gone through. It is a marvel that you recovered at all, and still
a greater that you recovered so quickly."

"For my part," said Lothair, "I am not surprised that he got well so
soon, because I never had a moment's doubt that he would. You may
believe me, Ottmar, when I tell you that, wretched as the state in
which his physical condition appeared to be, he was ne