here we are."

Adelaide, when we spoke of this circumstance, said, bitterly:

"Everything is against me!"

"Against you, Adelaide?" said I, looking apprehensively at her.

"Yes, everything!" she repeated.

She had never been effusive in her behavior to others; she was now, if
possible, still less so, but the uniform quietness and gentleness with
which she now treated all who came in contact with her, puzzled and
troubled me. What was it that preyed upon her mind? In looking round for
a cause my thoughts lighted first on one person, then on another; I
dismissed the idea of all, except von Francius, with a smile. Shortly I
abandoned that idea too. True, he was a man of very different caliber
from the others; a man, too, for whom Adelaide had conceived a decided
friendship, though in these latter days even that seemed to be dying
out. He did not come so often; when he did come they had little to say
to each other. Perhaps, after all, the cause of her sadness lay no
deeper than her every-day life, which must necessarily grow more
mournful day by day. She could feel intensely, as I had lately become
aware, and had, too, a warm, quick imagination. It might be that a
simple weariness of life and the anticipation of long years to come of
such a life lay so heavily upon her soul as to have wrought that gradual
change.

Sometimes I was satisfied with this theory; at others it dwindled into a
miserably inadequate measure. When Adelaide once or twice kissed me,
smiled at me, and called me "dear," it was on my lips to ask the
meaning of the whole thing, but it never passed them. I dared not speak
when it came to the point.

One day, about this time, I met Anna Sartorius in one of the picture
exhibitions. I would have bowed and passed her, but she stopped and
spoke to me.

"I have not seen you often lately," said she; "but I assure you, you
will hear more of me some time--and before long."

Without replying, I passed on. Anna had ceased even to pretend to look
friendly upon me, and I did not feel much alarm as to her power for or
against my happiness or peace of mind.

Regularly, once a month, I wrote to Miss Hallam and occasionally had a
few lines from Stella, who had become a protegee of Miss Hallam's too.
They appeared to get on very well together, at which I did not wonder;
for Stella, with all her youthfulness, was of a cynical turn of mind,
which must suit Miss Hallam well.

My greatest friend in Elberthal was goo