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that bloomed beside him, and wounded him with
that sharp sickle, so that he bowed his head, and would fain have been
bound up in the same sheaf with the sweet, blue flower. Then the world
seemed to him less beautiful, and life became earnest. It would have
been well if he could have forgotten the past; that he might not so
mournfully have lived in it, but might have enjoyed and improved the
present. But this his heart refused to do; and ever, as he floated upon
the great sea of life, he looked down through thetransparent waters,
checkered with sunshine and shade, into the vast chambers of the
mighty deep, in which his happier days had sunk, and wherein they
were lying still visible, like golden sands, and precious stones, and
pearls; and, half in despair, half in hope, he grasped downward after
them again, and drew back his hand, filled only with seaweed, and
dripping with briny tears!--And between him and those golden sands, a
radiant image floated, like the spirit in Dante's Paradise, singing
"Ave-Maria!" and while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing
away.
The truth is, that in all things he acted more from impulse than from
fixed principle; as is the case with most young men. Indeed, his
principles hardly had time to take root; for he pulled them all up, every
now and then, as children do the flowers they have planted,--to see if
they are growing. Yet there was much in him which was good; for
underneath the flowers and green-sward of poetry, and the good
principles which would have taken root, had he given them time,
therelay a strong and healthy soil of common sense,--freshened by
living springs of feeling, and enriched by many faded hopes, that had
fallen upon it like dead leaves.

CHAPTER IV.
THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER.

"Allez Fuchs! allez lustig!" cried the impatient postilion to his horses,
in accents, which, like the wild echo of the Lurley Felsen, came first
from one side of the river, and then from the other,--that is to say, in
words alternately French and German. The truth is, he was tired of
waiting; and when Flemming had at length resumed his seat in the
post-chaise, the poor horses had to make up the time lost in dreams on
the mountain. This is far oftener the case, than most people imagine.
One half of the world has to sweat and groan, that the other half may
dream. It would have been a difficult task for the traveller or his
postilion to persuade the horses, that these dreams were all for their
good.
The next stopping-place was the little tavern of the Star, an
out-of-the-way corner in the town of Salzig. It stands on the banks of
the Rhine; and, directly in front of it, sheer from the water's edge, rise
the mountains of Liebenstein and Sternenfels, each with its ruined
castle. These are the Brothers of the old tradition, still gazing at each
other face to face; and beneath them in the valley stands a
cloister,--meek emblem of that orphan child, they both so passionately
loved.
In a small, flat-bottomed boat did the landlady's daughter row
Flemming "over the Rhine-stream, rapid and roaring wide." She was a
beautiful girl of sixteen; with black hair, and dark, lovely eyes, and a
face that had a story to tell. How different faces are in this particular!
Some of them speak not. They are books in which not a line is written,
save perhaps a date. Others are great family bibles, with all the Old and
New Testament written in them. Others are Mother Goose and nursery
tales;--others bad tragedies or pickle-herring farces; and others, like
that of the landlady's daughter at the Star, sweet love-anthologies, and
songs of the affections. It was on that account, that Flemming said to
her, as they glided out into the swift stream;
"My dear child! do you know the story of the Liebenstein?"

"The story of the Liebenstein," she answered, "I got by heart, when I
was a little child."
And here her large, dark, passionate eyes looked into Flemming's, and
he doubted not, that she had learned the story far too soon, and far too
well. That story he longed to hear, as if it were unknown to him; for he
knew that the girl, who had got it by heart when a child, would tell it as
it should be told. So he begged her to repeat the story, which she was
but too glad to do; for she loved and believed it, as if it had all been
written in the Bible. But before she began, she rested a moment on her
oars, and taking the crucifix, which hung suspended from her neck,
kissed it, and then let