to be audible a sort of
plashing and splashing, and I saw a dim form climbing up arduously, and
presently swing itself over the balustrade with marvellous dexterity.

"Agafia?" the old man cried.

"Girl! Dorothea! In the name of heaven," I was beginning, but in an
instant I felt myself clasped hold of, and forcibly drawn away. "Oh,
for Christ's sake keep silence, dearest Anselmus, or you are a dead
man," whispered the creature who was standing close to me, trembling
and shivering with cold. Her long black hair hung down dripping, her
sodden garments were clinging to her slender body. She sank down
exhausted, saying, in tones of gentle complaining, "Oh, it is so cold
down there! Do not say another word, Anselmus dearest, or we must
certainly die."

The light of the flames was glowing upon her face, and I saw that she
was Dorothea, the pretty country girl who had taken asylum with my
landlord when her native village was plundered, and her father killed.
He employed her as a servant, and used to say that her troubles had
quite stupefied her, or otherwise she would have been a nice enough
little thing. And he was right there. She scarcely spoke, except to
utter a few words which sounded like incoherent nonsense, whilst her
face, which would otherwise have been beautiful, was marred by a
strange unmeaning smile. She used to bring my coffee into my room every
morning, and I remarked that her figure, complexion, &c., were not at
all those of a peasant girl. "Ah," my landlord used to say, "you see
she's a farmer's daughter, and a Saxon."

As this girl was thus lying, rather than kneeling before me, half dead,
dripping, I quickly pulled off my cloak and wrapped her in it,
whispering to her, "Warm yourself, dear, oh, warm yourself, darling
Dorothea, or you will die! What were you doing in the cold river?"

"Oh, keep silent!" she said, throwing back the hood of her mantle, and
combing her dripping hair back with her fingers. "What I implore you to
do is to keep silent. Come to that stone seat yonder. Father is
speaking with Saint Andrew, and can't hear us."

We crept cautiously to the stone seat. Utterly carried away by the most
extraordinary sensations, overmastered by fear and rapture, I clasped
the creature in my arms. She sat down in my lap without hesitation, and
threw her arms about my neck. I felt the icy water from her hair
running down my neck; but as drops sprinkled on fire only increase its
flaming, love and lon