ning from the town to
Speyer.

CHAPTER IX.

The sun was setting and still Felix remained on the topmost boards of
his scaffolding, to examine the cornice and the cracks in the walls
which appeared to require filling up. At the midday meal he had heard
that Erast's daughter had returned home, and who knows whether this
news had not brought back to his memory the most perilous portion of
his undertaking. At all events, whilst he was examining the pilasters,
consoles and figures, the remembrance of the fair maiden at the Stift
came back to his recollection more than once. Two hundred feet above
ground, standing on a narrow plank, he looked straight in the face of
the grave Serapis, then he passed his hand over his eyes, and bethought
him that this was not a good place for a reverie, and shaking his head,
said: "If I make a false step to-day, and come to the same end as did
Phaeton, no one but the fair Klytia is to blame, for whosoever has once
seen this maiden's sweet smile, will be haunted by the remembrance of
the dimple in her cheeks, even if he ascends as high up as to the
planetary Deities. Those old gentlemen have some knowledge of these
matters." As he was preparing to come down, he recognised the fair
maiden of whom he was thinking, standing in person before him close to
the window.

Klytia had in reality returned from the convent to the home of her
father, and had curled up her little nose in no small degree when she
perceived the scaffolding before her window and the dust in her room.
In spite of the sad recollections of that day in the Stift she felt
lonely at home. Even the farewell she took of the good Abbess was more
painful than she had thought it could be, and her anger against her
companions quite disappeared when they wished her good-bye amidst
kisses and good-humored jokes. She sat at her high window and gazed
through the scaffolding in a dreamy manner at the distant Rhine valley.
The Neckar flowed like a silver thread through the plain, whose fields
were white for the harvest; in the distance the blue Haardt mountains
were to be seen, the blossoming acacias on the slopes of the Jettenbuehl
filled the air with perfume, and to the right and left the flowering
chestnuts dotted as if with a white powder the dark-green woods. Around
the Heiligengeist the closely built houses seemed like sheep
surrounding their shepherd, and the two towers on the bridge standing
on ei