I answered not a word, and for a very good reason. My eyes had fallen upon a charming picture, suspended against the wall, the portrait of Grauben. My uncle's ward was at that time at Altona, staying with a relation, and in her absence I was very downhearted; for I may confess it to you now, the pretty Virlandaise and the professor's nephew loved eachother With a patience and a calmness entirely German. We had become engaged unknown to my uncle, who was too much taken up with geology to be able to enter into such feelings as ours. Grauben was a lovely blue-eye dblonde, rather given to gravity and seriousness; but that did not preventher from loving me very sincerely. As for me, I adored her, if there is sucha word in the German language. Thus it happened that the picture of mypretty Virlandaise threw me in a moment out of the world of realities intothat of memory and fancy.
There looked down upon me the faithful companion of my laboursand my recreations. Every day she helped me to arrange my uncle's pre-cious specimens; she and I labelled them together. Mademoiselle Grubenwas an accomplished mineralogist; she could have taught a few things toa savant. She was fond of investigating abstruse scientific questions. Whatpleasant hours we have spent in study; and how often I envied the verystones which she handled with her charming fingers.
Then, when our leisure hours came, we used to go out together andturn into the shady avenues by the Alster, and went happily side by side upto the old windmill, which forms such an improvement to the landscapeat the head of the lake. On the road we chatted hand in hand; I told heramusing tales at which she laughed heartily. Then we readied the banksof the Elbe, and after having bid good-bye to the swan, sailing gracefullyamidst the white water lilies, we returned to the quay by the steamer.
That is just where I was in my dream, when my uncle with a vehe-ment thump on the table dragged me back to the realities of life.
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