he child to him; the child whom he used to
frighten with his gruesome ghost-stories, especially of his
"Doppelgaenger," a name, Clara afterwards took to herself. Child as she
was, he watched her with something of fascination, and wrote his
mother:

"Clara is as fond of me as ever, and is just as she used to be of old,
wild and enthusiastic, skipping and running about like a child, and
saying the most intensely thoughtful things. It is a pleasure to see
how her gifts of mind and heart keep developing faster and faster, and,
as it were, leaf by leaf. The other day, as we were walking back from
Cannovitz (we go for a two or three hours' tramp almost every day), I
heard her say to herself: 'Oh, how happy I am! how happy!' Who would
not love to hear that? On this same road there are a great many useless
stones lying about in the middle of the footpath. Now, when I am
talking, I often look more up than down, so she always walks behind me
and gently pulls my coat at every stone to prevent my falling; meantime
she stumbles over them herself."

What an allegory of womanly devotion is here!

Gradually Schumann let himself write to Clara a whit more like a lover
than a brother, with an occasional "Longingly yours." He begged her to
keep mental trysts with him, and, acknowledging a composition she had
dedicated to him, he hinted:

"If you were present, I would press your hand even without your
father's leave. Then I might express a hope that the union of our names
on the title-page might foreshadow the union of our ideas in the
future. A poor fellow like myself cannot offer you more than that....
Today a year ago we drove to Schleusig, how sorry I am that I spoiled
your pleasure on that occasion."

Of this last, we can only imagine some too ardent compliment, or
perhaps some subjection to one of his dense melancholies. In the very
midst of his short infatuation with Ernestine von Fricken, he is still
corresponding with Clara. Their tone is very cordial, and, knowing the
sequel, it is hard not to read into them perhaps more than Schumann
meant. The letters could hardly have seemed to him to be love letters,
since he writes to Clara that he has been considering the publication
of their correspondence in his "Zeitschrift," though he was probably
not serious at this, seeing that he also plans to fill a balloon with
his unwritten thoughts and send it to her, "properly addressed with a
favourable wind."

"I long to catch butterfl