new
acquaintance who interests one. He turned to the signature. "_Your
friend, Natalie._"

Then he walked up and down, slowly and thoughtfully; but ever and again
he would turn to the letter to see that he had quite accurately
remembered what she had said about the delight of the sail from Calais,
and the beautiful flowers at Dover and her gladness at the prospect of
their having this new associate and friend. Then the handwriting again.
The second stroke of the N in her name had a little notch at the
top--German fashion. It looked a pretty name, as she wrote it.

Then he went to the window, and leaned on the brass bar, and looked out
on the dark and sleeping world, with its countless golden points of
fire. He remained there a long time, thinking--of the past, in which he
had fancied his life was buried; of the present, with its bewildering
uncertainties; of the future, with its fascinating dreams. There might
be a future for him, then, after all; and hope; and the joy of
companionship? Surely that letter meant at least so much.

But then the boundlessness, the eager impatience, of human wishes!
Farther and farther, as he leaned and looked out, without seeing much of
the wonderful spectacle before him, went his thoughts and eager hopes
and desires. Companionship; but with whom? And might not the spring-time
of life come back again, as it was now coming back to the world in the
sweet new air that had begun to blow from the South? And what message
did the soft night-wind bring him but the name of Natalie? And Natalie
was written in the clear and shining heavens, in letters of fire and
joy; and the river spoke of Natalie; and the darkness murmured Natalie.

But his heart, whispering to him--there, in the silence of the night, in
the time when dreams abound, and visions of what may be--his heart,
whispering to him, said--"Natalushka!"

CHAPTER XI.

A COMMISSION.

When Ferdinand Lind looked out the next day from the window of his
hotel, it was not at all the Venice of chromolithography that lay before
him. The morning was wild, gray, and gloomy, with a blustering wind
blowing down from the north; the broad expanse of green water ruffled
and lashed by continual squalls; the sea-gulls wheeling and dipping over
the driven waves; the dingy masses of shipping huddled along the wet and
deserted quays; the long spur of the Lido a thin black line between the
green sea and purple sky; and the domed churches over ther