at by herself, quite still, looking in
great content, now at her new traveling-shoes, which peeped out from
beneath her petticoats, and now down at the water, while the morning
sun shone on her white forehead, above which the hair was neatly
parted. I noticed that the students would have liked to engage her in
polite discourse, for they kept passing to and fro before her, and the
cornetist, whenever he did so, cleared his throat, and settled, first
his cravat, and then his three-cornered hat. But their courage failed
them, and moreover the girl cast down her eyes as soon as they,
approached her.

They seemed, besides, to stand in special awe of the elderly gentleman
in the gray overcoat, who was now sitting on the other side of the
boat, and whom they took for a divine. He held an open breviary, in
which he was reading, looking up from it frequently to admire the
lovely scenery, while the gilt edges of the book and the gay pictures
of saints laid between its leaves shone brilliantly in the sun light.
He was perfectly well aware, too, of what was going on around him,
and soon recognized the birds by their feathers, for before long he
addressed one of the students in Latin, whereupon all three approached
him, took off their hats, and made answer also in Latin.

Meanwhile, I had seated myself at the prow of the boat, where, highly
delighted, I dangled my legs above the water, gazing, while the boat
glided onward and the waves below me leaped and foamed, constantly
into the blue distance, watching towers and castles one after another
emerge from the dim depths of green, grow and grow upon the sight,
and finally recede and vanish behind us. "If I had but wings at this
moment!" I thought; and at last in my impatience I drew forth my dear
violin and played all my oldest pieces, which I had learned at home
and at the castle of the Lady fair.

All at once some one behind me tapped me on the shoulder. It was
the reverend gentleman, who had laid aside his book, and had been
listening to me for a while. "Aha," he said laughing, "aha, my young
_ludi magister_ is forgetting to eat and drink!" Whereupon he bade me
put away my fiddle and take a bit of luncheon with him, and he then
led me to a pleasant little arbor which the boatmen had erected in
the centre of the boat out of young birches and firs. He had a table
placed beneath it, and I and the students, and even the young girl,
were invited to sit down around it upon the casks a