rtable feeling
which parting from a friend creates, that he took the road into town in
no very cheerful mood. On entering the city he turned aside and
followed a deserted path which led along the well-preserved old city
wall. He did not in the least know where he was going; he had nothing
to do here, he knew no one, but he must look about a little in the
neighboring town. It seemed, in fact, well entitled to its reputation
as an old German imperial city; the castle, with the celebrated
cathedral, towered up defiantly on the steep crags; several slender
church towers rose from out the multitude of red pointed roofs, and the
old wall, broken at regular intervals by clumsy square watch-towers,
surrounded the old town like a firm chain.

He took delight in the beautiful picture, and as he walked on his fancy
painted the magnificent imperial city waking out of its slumber of a
thousand years. After awhile he stopped and looked up to one of the
gray towers.

"Really it is almost like the Eschenheim Gate in Frankfort," he said
half aloud; "what wonderful springs the thoughts make!"

Suddenly he found himself back in the present; scarcely four weeks ago
he had passed through that beautiful gate, without dreaming that he
would so soon see its companion in North Germany. Like lightning out of
blue sky this inheritance which made him possessor of Niendorf had come
upon him. How it had happened to occur to his grandfather's old brother
to select _him_ out of the multitude of his relatives for his heir
still remained an unsolved problem, and he could only refer it to the
especial liking for his mother whom the eccentric old man had always
shown a preference for.

He had felt when he received the news as if a golden shower had fallen
into his lap; it is difficult living in a city of millionaires on the
salary of an assessor. And then--he had received a wound there in that
brilliant bewildering life, and the scar still made itself felt at
times--for instance when an elegant equipage dashed by him--black
horses with liveries of black and silver and on the light-gray cushions
a woman's figure, dark ostrich feathers waving above a face of marble
whiteness, the luxuriant gold brown hair fastened in a knot on the neck
and ah! looking so coldly at him out of her great blue eyes. After such
a meeting he felt depressed for days. "A milliner's doll, a heartless
woman," he called her bitterly, but he had once believed quite the
reverse a w