between young men and women there is the utmost safety in such a
relationship.

And as all ways were alike to me, I was willing enough. For indeed I
loved her and none other, and so did all the days of my life. Though I
know that my actions and conceits were not always conformable to the true
love that was in my heart, neither wholly worthy of my dear maid.

But, then, what would you? Nineteen and the follies of one's youth! The
mercy of God rather than any virtue in me kept these from being not only
infinitely more numerous, but infinitely worse. Yet I had better confess
them, such as they are, in this place. For it was some such nothings as
those which follow that first brought Helene and me into one way of
thinking, though by paths very devious indeed.

To begin with the earliest. There was a maid who dwelt in the Tower of
the Wolfsberg opposite, called the Tower of the Captain of the Guard. And
the maid's name was Elsa, or, as she was ordinarily called, "Christian's
Elsa." She was a comely maid enough, and greatly taken notice of. And
when I went to my window to con over my task for Friar Laurence, there at
the opposite window would be--strange that it should always he
so--Christian's Elsa. She was a little girl, short and plump, but with
merry eyes and so bright a stain upon either cheek that it seemed as if
she had been eating raspberry conserve, and had wiped her fingers upon
the smiling plumpness there.

At any rate, as sure as ever I betook me to the window, there would be
Christian's Elsa, busy with her needles.

And to tell truth I misliked it not greatly. Why, indeed, should I? For
there is surely no harm in looking across twenty yards of space at a
maid, and as little in the maid looking at you--that is, if neither of
you come any nearer. Besides, it is much pleasanter to look at a pretty
lass than at a vacant wall and twenty yards of uneven cobble-stones.

Now the girl was harmless enough--a red and white maid, plump as a
partridge in the end of harvest. She was forever humming at songs,
singing little choruses, and inventing of new melodies, all tunefully and
prettily enough. And she would bring her dulcimer to the window and play
them over, nodding her head to the instrument as she sang.

It was pleasant to watch her. For sometimes when the music refused to run
aright, she would frown at the dulcimer, as if the discord had been
entirely its fault and it was old enough to know better. Then sometime