om your strangely agitated

"WOLF.

"_Postscript_. Shall I tell you all I think? I believe that Helene has
mistaken me for some one else----"

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM.

PART I.

Herr von Jagerfeld, a rich manufacturer who had recently been elevated
to the rank of baron in the Bavarian nobility, was celebrating a double
festival: his silver wedding and the completion of his castle,
Franzensruhe, which he had built outside the gates of Marktbreit, on
the slope of one of the hills, which, as the last western spur of the
Steigerwald, roll in a gradual descent to the bank of the Main. The
castle was a magnificent edifice, in the Renaissance style--of course.
Red sandstone and white marble had been used, with a beautiful effect
of colour, for the facade, which made a lavish display of pilasters
with foliage and vine work, niches containing statues, and bay windows
with beautiful wrought iron railings. The castle stood in the midst of
a lovely park filled with trees a century old, which extended up to the
summit of the hill and down to the river.

The master of the castle liked a lavish style. He had invited to his
house-warming numerous guests, to whom, in the spacious apartments
planned for this purpose, he could offer a really royal hospitality, at
once magnificent and refined. They were chiefly land-owners from the
province of the Main, rich merchants and manufacturers from Frankfort,
and acquaintances from places still more remote, who had flocked here
with their wives and grown children, so that from early morning the
mansion had been filled with joyous life.

The entire company assembled for the first time at the banquet which
took place in the evening. The large dining-hall, wainscoted with
polished marble in the style of the Italian palaces, whose painted
ceiling was supported by fluted columns, was lighted by a superb
chandelier with hundreds of wax candles, and contained a long table
very richly set. Silver ornaments, exquisitely wrought, adorned the
centre and the ends. The china, the array of glasses of all shapes
which stood beside each plate, bore the initial of the master of the
house, without any heraldic addition which might recall the recent
elevation of rank, a graceful bit of coquetry on the part of a man who
had been successful in life, but who was no upstart. At every plate
was also placed a bouquet, in a holder representing a crystal lily with
a silver cup. The company harmon