him wholly as she continued her grave step,
and he shuffling and treading out of his line across hers, or on the
path-borders, and never apologizing, nor she noticing it. At night she
sang, sometimes mountain ditties to the accompaniment of the zither,
leaning on the table and sweeping the wires between snatches of talk.
Nothing haunted me so much as those tones of, her zither, which were
little louder than summer gnats when fireflies are at their brightest
and storm impends.

My father brought horses from England, and a couple of English grooms,
and so busy an air of cheerfulness, that I had, like a sick invalid,
to beg him to keep away from me and prolong unlimitedly his visit to
Sarkeld; the rather so, as he said he had now become indispensable to
the prince besides the margravine. 'Only no more bronze statues!' I
adjured him. He nodded. He had hired Count Fretzel's chateau, in the
immediate neighbourhood, and was absolutely independent, he said. His
lawyers were busy procuring evidence. He had impressed Prince Ernest
with a due appreciation of the wealth of a young English gentleman, by
taking him over my grandfather's mine.

'And, Richie, we have advanced him a trifle of thousands for the working
of this coal discovery of his. In six weeks our schooner yacht will be
in the Elbe to offer him entertainment. He graciously deigns to accept
a couple of English hunters at our hands; we shall improve his breed
of horses, I suspect. Now, Richie, have I done well? I flatter myself I
have been attentive to your interests, have I not?'

He hung waiting for confidential communications on my part, but did not
press for them; he preserved an unvarying delicacy in that respect.

'You have nothing to tell?' he asked.

'Nothing,' I said. 'I have only to thank you.'

He left me. At no other period of our lives were we so disunited. I felt
in myself the reverse of everything I perceived in him, and such letters
as I wrote to the squire consequently had a homelier tone. It seems
that I wrote of the pleasures of simple living--of living for learning's
sake. Mr. Peterborough at the same time despatched praises of my
sobriety of behaviour and diligent studiousness, confessing that I began
to outstrip him in some of the higher branches. The squire's brief reply
breathed satisfaction, but too evidently on the point where he had been
led to misconceive the state of affairs. 'He wanted to have me near him,
as did another person, whom