breeze or the caress of toying fingers. So they walked a
long, long time in the dark park, without heeding the flight of time,
far from the world and unutterably happy.

"I am tired, Karl," Ada said at last, and leaned her head on his
shoulder.

They were near a low, grassy bank, a few paces from the central avenue,
and almost under the balcony of the castle, but completely concealed by
the dense shadow of the over-arching trees. Karl spread his shawl over
the bank and the ground, placed Ada on it, and reclined at her feet,
resting his head in her lap. The balcony and the windows and lights of
the drawing-room could all be seen from this spot. The window still
stood open, the notes of a piano were heard, and a voice began the song:

"From out my tears will bloom
Full many a flow'ret fair."

A pretty, but somewhat cold, female voice, with no special tenderness
and feeling. Yet the combined poesy of Heine and Schumann triumphed
gloriously over the inadequacy of the execution. The wonderful,
choral-like melody soared like the flight of a swan over the rapt pair,
and completely dissolved their souls in melody and love:

"Before thy windows shall ring
The song of the nightingale,"

sang the woman's voice above, and the accompanying piano completed the
air with an organ-like closing accord.

"Before thy windows shall ring
The song of the nightingale,"

Karl softly repeated, in his beautiful baritone, thrilling with an
approaching tempest of passion, his arms clasped Ada's waist, and he
gazed up at her with wild, flaming eyes. She bent down to him and her
lips met his, which nearly scorched them. Leaning back, and gently
pushing his head away, she whispered:

"Don't repeat verses by Heine; say something which is yours, and is
composed for me."

"That I will, Ada," he cried, and, kneeling before her, clasping her in
a close embrace and devouring her face with rapturous eyes, his whole
being wrought up to the highest pitch of emotion, he said in a rapid
improvisation, bursting from the inmost depths of his soul:

"In the shadowy hour when ghosts do flit,
Thou art to me a beauteous dream;
To thy lips I cling, yet while I love,
My happiness scarce real doth seem."

"Thy mouth and thy fair hands I kiss,
I kiss thine eyes and thy silken hair,
And should our lives end at this hour,
Still we should die a happy pair."

Her eyes were half closed, and her bosom heaved.