ong
enough, and contained pictures from many different classes. But my hour,
too, seemed on the point of striking, for when I went home in my last
Christmas vacation I thought myself really in love with the charming
daughter of the pleasant widow of a landed proprietor. Nay, though only
nineteen, I even considered whether I should not unite her destiny with
mine, and formally ask her hand. My father had offered himself to my
mother at the same age.

In Kottbus I was treated with the respect due to a man, but at home I
was still "the boy," and the youngest of us three "little ones." Ludo,
as a lieutenant, had a position in society, while I was yet a schoolboy.
Amid these surroundings I realized how hasty and premature my intention
had been.

Only four of us came to keep Christmas at home, for Martha now lived
in Dresden as the wife of Lieutenant Baron Curt von Brandenstein,
the nephew of our Aunt Sophie's husband. Her wedding ceremony in the
cathedral was, of course, performed by the court-chaplain Strauss.

My grandmother had died, but my Aunt Sophie still lived in Dresden, and
spent her summers in Blasewitz. Her hospitable house always afforded an
atmosphere very stimulating to intellectual life, so I spent more time
there than in my mother's more quiet residence at Pillnitz.

I had usually passed part of the long--or, as it was called, the
"dog-day"--vacation in or near Dresden, but I also took pleasant
pedestrian tours in Bohemia, and after my promotion to the senior class,
through the Black Forest.

It was a delightful excursion! Yet I can never recall it without a
tinge of sadness, for my two companions, a talented young artist named
Rothermund, and a law student called Forster, both died young. We
had met in a railway carriage between Frankfort and Heidelberg and
determined to take the tour together, and never did the Black Forest,
with its mountains and valleys, dark forests and green meadows, clear
streams and pleasant villages, seem to me more beautiful. But still
fairer days were in store after parting from my friends.

I went to Rippoldsau, where a beloved niece of my mother with her
charming daughter Betsy expected me. Here in the excellent Gohring
hotel I found a delightful party, which only lacked young gentlemen.
My arrival added a pair of feet which never tired of dancing, and every
evening our elders were obliged to entreat and command in order to put
an end to our sport. The mornings were occupi