th the camera, in
looking for spots where you could make your sketches, to have observed
anything else which was passing. You left the broad walk, you remember,
and went to a sequestered place on the side of the lake. There was a
fine view of the opposite shore which you wished to take. Well, Ottilie,
who was with us, got up to follow; and then proposed that she and I
should find our way to you in the boat. I got in with her, and was
delighted with the skill of my fair conductress. I assured her that
never since I had been in Switzerland, where the young ladies so often
fill the place of the boatmen, had I been so pleasantly ferried over the
water. At the same time I could not help asking her why she had shown
such an objection to going the way which you had gone, along the little
by-path. I had observed her shrink from it with a sort of painful
uneasiness. She was not at all offended. 'If you will promise not to
laugh at me,' she answered, 'I will tell you as much as I know about
it; but to myself it is a mystery which I cannot explain. There is a
particular spot in that path which I never pass without a strange shiver
passing over me, which I do not remember ever feeling anywhere else, and
which I cannot the least understand. But I shrink from exposing myself
to the sensation, because it is followed immediately after by a pain on
the left side of my head, from which at other times I suffer severely.'
We landed. Ottilie was engaged with you, and I took the opportunity of
examining the spot, which she pointed out to me as we went by on the
water. I was not a little surprised to find there distinct traces of
coal in sufficient quantities to convince me that at a short distance
below the surface there must be a considerable bed of it.

"Pardon me, my Lord; I see you smile; and I know very well that you have
no faith in these things about which I am so eager, and that it is only
your sense and your kindness which enable you to tolerate me. However,
it is impossible for me to leave this place without trying on that
beautiful creature an experiment with the pendulum."

The Earl, whenever these matters came to be spoken of, never failed to
repeat the same objections to them over and over again; and his friend
endured them all quietly and patiently, remaining firm, nevertheless, to
his own opinion, and holding to his own wishes. He, too, again repeated
that there was no reason, because the experiment did not succeed with
ever