e answered gaily. "Out of curiosity to
see your brother."

CHAPTER III.

"It's true! Rinaldo is in the old chains again!" exclaimed Edwin, as he
entered the room where Balder sat alone, sunning himself in the window.
He was apparently unoccupied, for he had hastily locked up the volume
in which he had been writing verses, when he heard Edwin's step in the
courtyard below, nevertheless the reflection of his poetic dreams still
lingered in his eyes.

"Have you found her?" he asked. "How did she appear?"

"Exactly as usual, neither cordial nor repellant. Oh! child, if you
could but solve this problem! How can one long for grapes, which not
only hang too high, but are after all merely painted. If, in the moon,
there live creatures resembling men, who breath a special atmosphere,
and have in their veins some vital ichor different from our blood, they
may appear like this girl. Something of the true woman is lacking, and
yet she possesses everything that hundreds of others need to attain the
full meaning of womanhood. My brain aches with trying to understand the
mystery."

He threw himself into a chair before the table, now set for dinner, and
drank a glass of water.

"And shall you go to her every day as before?" asked Balder sadly.

"As long as I can hold out. As long as it lasts. For I fear she will
ultimately become such a mystery to herself, that she will commit some
mad act. I proposed to cure her, to make life dear to her, to transform
Mephistopheles, 'first of all I must bring her into better company.'
But I don't imagine I shall succeed in finding a life purpose for her,
a task which will really warm her heart, fill her days, and of which
she can dream at night. Ah! if she only had a brain like that of my
little hedge princess Leah! But that's the strangest thing of all:
she's clever and yet entirely without any craving for knowledge;
without prejudices and perfectly indifferent to the opinions of others,
kind hearted without any interest in mankind; gay without being
contented, bright without being warm--and I, as a punishment for my
sins, am condemned to lavish as much heart's blood upon this strange
specimen of her sex, as if I were attempting a moral transfusion,
instead of the physical one that has long been tried. You'll see,
child: when I've once succeeded in replacing the moon-lymph in her
veins with warm, earthly human blood, the first dandy that comes along
wil