o spent a pleasant evening together. They made
each other mutually acquainted with the evil omens and the impressions
which they had occasioned, and bantered one another a little thereon;
but decided positively that such fore-tokenings for the most
part--betoken nothing at all.

As they separated for the night the Assessor pressed Petrea's hand with
the assurance that very rarely had a day given him such a joyous
evening. Grateful for these words, and grateful for the hope of soon
finding again the lost and wept friend of her youth, Petrea went to
rest, but the Assessor remained up late--midnight saw him still writing.

Man and woman! There is a deal, especially in novels, said about man and
woman, as of separate beings. However that may be, human beings are they
both--and as human beings, as morally sentient and thinking creatures,
they influence one another for life. Their ways and means are different;
and it is this very difference which, by mutual benefits, and mutual
endeavours to sweeten life to one another, produces what is so beautiful
and so perfect.

The clearest sun brightened the following morning; but the eyes of the
Assessor were troubled, as if he had enjoyed but little repose. Whilst
he and Petrea were breakfasting, he was called out to inspect something
relative to the carriage.

Was it now the hereditary sin of mother Eve, or was it any other cause
which induced Petrea at this moment to approach the table on which the
Assessor's money lay, together with papers ready to be put into a
travelling writing-case. Enough! she did it--she did certainly what no
upright reader will pardon her for doing, quickly ran her eyes over one
of the papers which seemed just lately to have received from the pen
impressions of thought, and she took it. Shortly afterwards the Assessor
entered, and as it was somewhat late, he hastily put together his
papers, and they set off on their journey.

The weather was glorious, and Petrea rejoiced like--nay, even more than
a child, over the objects which met her eyes, and which, after the rain,
stood in the bright sunshine, as if in the glory of a festive-day. The
world was to her now more than ever a magic ring; not the perplexing,
half-heathenish, but the purely Christian, in which everything, every
moment has its signification, even as every dewdrop receives its beaming
point of light from the splendour of the sun. Autumn was, above all,
Petrea's favourite season, and its abun