the
school-room, a window which looked into the playground was open, and
there were marks of footsteps on the snow without. A short distance
further were traces of blood, where the fugitive had apparently washed
his face and hands in the snow. We have never seen him since that
day."

The painter paused, and his friends remained some moments silent,
musing on the tragical history they had heard.

"And do you know nothing whatever of your brother's fate?" enquired
Raphael at last.

"Next to nothing. My uncle caused enquiries to be made in every
direction, but without success. Once only a neighbour at Marienberg,
who had been travelling on the Bohemian frontier, told us that he had
met at a village inn a wandering clarinet-player, who bore so strong a
resemblance to my brother that he accosted him by his name. The
musician seemed confused, and muttering some unintelligible reply,
left the house in haste. What renders it probable that this was
Bernard is, that he had a great natural talent for music, and at the
time he left home, had already attained considerable proficiency on
the clarinet."

"How old was your brother when he so strangely disappeared?" asked one
of the party.

"Fifteen, but he looked at least two years older, for he was stout and
manly in person beyond his age."

At this moment the rattling of wheels, and sound of a postilion's
horn, was heard. The Halle mail drove up to the door, the guard
bawling out for his passenger. The young painter took a hasty leave of
his friends, and sprang into the vehicle, which the next instant
disappeared in the darkness.

There was an overplus of travellers by the mail that night, and the
carriage in which Solling had got, was not the mail itself, but a
caleche, holding four persons, which was used as a sort of
supplement, and followed close to the other carriage. Two of the
places were occupied by a Jew horse-dealer and a sergeant of hussars,
who were engaged in an animated, and to them most interesting
conversation, on the subject of horse-flesh, to which the painter paid
little attention; but leaning back in his corner, remained absorbed in
the painful reflections which the incidents he had been narrating had
called up in his mind. In spite of his brother's eccentricities, he
was truly attached to him; and although eight years had elapsed since
his disappearance, he had not yet given up hopes of finding him, if
still alive. The enquiries that he and his uncle h