compensation."

"How beautifully she interprets everything," said the queen, addressing
her husband; and it was with a mingled expression of delight and pain
that the king regarded the two ladies. What was passing in his mind? He
admired and loved Irma; he respected and loved his wife. He was untrue
to both. Irma and the queen went through the galleries and the
collection of antiques, and would sit for hours, looking at the
pictures and statues. Every remark of the queen's was met by an
observation of Irma's, which was in full accord with hers.

"When I look at and listen to you two," said the king, "and think of
where you resemble each other and where you differ, it seems as if I
saw the daughters of Schiller and Goethe before me."

"How singular!" interposed the queen, and the king continued:

"Goethe saw the world through brown, and Schiller through blue eyes;
and so it is with you two. You look through blue eyes, like Schiller's,
and our friend through brown eyes, like those of Goethe's."

"It won't do to let any one know that we flatter each other so," said
the queen, smiling. Irma looked up to the ceiling, where painted angels
were hovering in the air. There is a world of infinite space where no
one can supplant another; it is only in the everyday world that
exclusiveness exists, thought she to herself.

The more the queen gained in strength, the more marked was the change
from a subdued, to a bright and cheerful vein.

It seemed as if Irma's wish was about to be realized. The life-renewing
power of spring which reanimates the trees and the plants, seemed to
extend its influence over human life. It seemed as if the past were
buried and forgotten.

It was on the first mild day of spring, and they were walking together
in the palace garden, when the queen said:

"I can't imagine that there ever was a time when we did not know each
other, dear Irma." She stopped and looked into Irma's eyes with an
expression radiant with joy. "You once told me about a Greek
philosopher," said she, addressing Doctor Gunther, who was walking
after them with the captain of the palace-guard, "who thought that our
souls had a previous existence, and that our best experience, in this
world, is merely the recollection of what we have experienced or
imagined to ourselves in some earlier state of being."

"Without accepting this fanciful theory," replied Gunther, "there is
much in life which may be regarded as destiny. I believe t