her face of anxious solicitude, was the
good Gertrud herself. 'I have prepared the gracious one's bed,' she
called out breathlessly; 'will she not soon enter it?'

'Oh Gertrud,' I cried, remembering the garret and forgetting the ghoul,
'which bed?'

'With the aid of the chambermaid I have removed two of them into the
passage,' said Gertrud, buttoning me into my coat.

'And the wash-stand?'

She shook her head. 'That I could not remove, for there is no other to
be had in its place. The chambermaid said that in four weeks' time'
--she stopped and scanned my face. 'The gracious one looks put out,' she
said. 'Has anything happened?'

'Put out? My dear Gertrud, I have been thinking of very serious things.
You cannot expect me to frolic along paths of thought that lead to
mighty and unpleasant truths. Why should I always smile? I am not a
Cheshire cat.'

'I trust the gracious one will come in now and enter her bed,' said
Gertrud decidedly, who had never heard of Cheshire cats, and was sure
that the mention of them indicated a brain in need of repose.

'Oh Gertrud,' I cried, intolerably stirred by the bare mention of that
bed, 'this is a bleak and mischievous world, isn't it? Do you think we
shall ever be warm and comfortable and happy again?'

THE FOURTH DAY

FROM GOeHREN TO THIESSOW

We left Goehren at seven the next morning and breakfasted outside it
where the lodging-houses end and the woods begin. Gertrud had bought
bread, and butter, and a bottle of milk, and we sat among the
nightshades, whose flowers were everywhere, and ate in purity and
cleanliness while August waited in the road. The charming little flowers
with their one-half purple and other half yellow are those that have red
berries later in the year and are called by Keats ruby grapes of
Proserpine. Yet they are not poisonous, and there is no reason why you
should not suffer your pale forehead to be kissed by them if you want
to. They are as innocent as they are pretty, and the wood was full of
them. Poison, death, and Proserpine seemed far enough away from that
leafy place and the rude honesty of bread and butter. Still, lest I
should feel too happy, and therefore be less able to bear any shocks
that might be awaiting me at Thiessow, I repeated the melancholy and
beautiful ode for my admonishment under my breath. It had no effect.
Usually it is an unfailing antidote in its extraordinary depression to
any excess of cheerfulness; but the woo