woman
would be. Her leaving him must have been owing to some trifling
misunderstanding. I am sure it would be for her happiness to go back to
him. She would grow quite round and mellow. Could I not do something,
say something, to get her to give him another trial? I wish--oh, I wish
I could!'

Now from time to time the wise relative quoted above amplifies his
advice in the following manner:--'Of all forms of meddling that which
deals with man and wife is, to the meddler, the most immediately fatal.'

But where are the persons who take advice? I never yet met them. When
the first shaft of sunshine slanted through my window it fell on me in
my dressing-gown feverishly writing to Charlotte. The eloquence of that
letter! I really think it had all the words in it I know, except those
about growing round and mellow. Something told me that they would not
appeal to her. I put it in an envelope and locked it in my dressing-case
till, unconscious of what was in store for her, she should send me her
address; and then, full of the glow that warms the doer of good actions
equally with the officious, I put on my bathing things, a decent skirt
and cloak over them, got out of the window, and went down the cliff to
the beach to bathe.

The water was icily cold in the shadow of the cliffs, but it was a
wonderful feeling getting all the closeness of the night dashed off me
in that vast and splendid morning solitude. Dripping I hurried up again,
my skirt and cloak over the soaked bathing dress, my wet feet thrust
into shoes I could never afterwards wear, a trickle of salt water
marking the way I took. It was just five o'clock as I got in at the
window. In another quarter of an hour I was dry and dressed and out of
the window a second time--getting in and out of that window had a
singular fascination for me--and on my way for an early exploring of the
woods.

But those Stubbenkammer woods were destined never to be explored by me;
for I had hardly walked ten minutes along their beechen ways listening
to the birds and stopping every few steps to look up at the blue of the
sky between the branches, before I came to the Hertha See, a mysterious
silent pond of black water with reeds round it and solemn forest paths,
and on the moss by the shore of the Hertha See, his eyes fixed on its
sullen waters, deep in thought, sat the Professor.

'Don't tell me you have forgotten me again,' I exclaimed anxiously; for
his eyes turned from the lake to