doctor, as my landlady constantly urged me to do. The people here have
great faith in medicines. I am glad that I can now again stand on my
feet, and owe it to no one but myself. I will venture on my first walk
to-day. The air is cold, but still, and the sun is so powerful that I
can boldly open my casement. I long to hear something about Morrik; but
whom can I ask.

The same day.

My presentiment was right; the visions in my feverish dreams spoke the
truth. He is seriously ill with typhus fever. He has been laid up ever
since that concert and sometimes the fever is so bad that he lies
unconscious for hours. I met his doctor just at the gate of the town,
and mustered courage to ask him for news of Morrik; and what good would
restraint do me; it would only be ridiculous for does not everyone
already know that I led him out of the concert-room, and across the
streets and is not my show of interest very innocent, though
unfortunately it may seem improper. The doctor looked very grave and I
should have liked to detain him, and extract from him a decided answer
to my question as to whether there was any immediate danger, but just
then one of his patients accosted him, and our conversation was broken
off. With what feelings I sat down on the sunny bench, and gazed at the
water, watching the logs of wood floating down the stream, and swept
away by the force of the current every time they tried to cling to a
stone. And is it not so with us poor human creatures; do we not float
down the stream of life! and are the happy moments we enjoy anything
better than a short rest on a cliff from which we are severed by the
first passing wave.--Oh, come peace, come! My heart will break with its
stormy throbbing. How shall I be able every morning to endure the pain
of imagining him dying, and of not being able to watch for his every
breath! Oh heavens! and has it come to this, that I must see him leave
this world before me; I who never dreamt of such a possibility.

January, the 12th--Evening.

At last I have gained my point; and the calm I now feel amply
compensates me for the struggle I have had to endure. I have just come
from his lodgings where I have passed the day with him, and shall do so
again to-morrow, and all the days that are yet granted to him.

How I passed this night, God to whom I prayed in my calmer moments
alone knows. In