ration, that all this homage was serious and real, and issued
gravely from her heart through her lips. She meant every syllable she
spoke in its true sense; and I felt that she was ready to fulfill it,
and sustain it to the end. She believed that all endurances were
possible for love's sake, and that she could even enact miracles of
stoicism in the strength of her fidelity.

For many months our intercourse, always thus sophisticating its aims and
interpretations, was carried on in secret. We had become necessary to
each other; but being still shut up in our mystery, we had not made as
much advance toward any definite result as one single moment of
disclosure to the people we were among would have inevitably compelled
us to decide upon. We were very prudent in our outward bearing, and
hardly aware of the avidity with which the concealed passion was
devouring our hearts.

The dwarf followed me, and hovered about me more than ever. But I
learned to bear with him on account of his being in the house with
Astraea. Any body who was constantly in her society, and admitted to
terms of intimacy with her, was welcome to me--as relics from the altar
of a saint are welcome to the devotee, or a leaf snatched, from a tree
in the haunts of home is welcome to the exile. It was a pleasure when I
met him even to ask for Astraea, to have an excuse for uttering her name,
or to hear him speak of her, or to speak of her myself, or to talk of
any thing that we had before talked of together. Such are the resources,
the feints, the stratagems, the foibles of love!

VI.

One night my indefatigable Mephistophiles took me to a tavern. He was in
a vagrant mood, and I indulged him.

"Come, we shall see life to-night," he said.

"With all my heart," I replied. It was not much to my taste, but I
fancied there was something unusual in his manner, and my curiosity was
awakened to see what it would lead to.

We entered a bustling and brilliantly-lighted house. Numerous guests
were scattered about at different tables, variously engaged in getting
rid of time at the smallest possible cost of reflection. The dwarf
sauntered through the room, whispered a waiter, and, beckoning me to
follow, led the way up-stairs to a lesser apartment, where we found
ourselves alone.

"You will not see much life here," I observed, rather surprised at his
selection of a secluded room in preference to the lively _salon_ through
which we had just passed.

"We can m