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It was the same look, half joyous, half sad, with which the golden-haired sea-nymph on the runic rock by the beach had gazed upon me, as she answered: 'I see the shortness of life.' What the dream had failed to tell me-the name of this lovely, half-divine, half-human apparition-I now heard from Holding Terborg's lips. I felt that he had uttered it : she was Sympathy.

A few moments afterwards I heard the voice of Miss Lindersen.

Now, my friends,' she said, 'I am sure we shall none of us allow our veneration and enthusiasm for the noblest creations of a Raphael or a Holbein to be in any way checked by a few eccentric, prejudicial remarks; so now, after this little apparent skirmish, we may comfortably go and enjoy the refreshment which awaits us at the supper-table.'

'I quite agree with you, my dear Corinna,' said the divine, and Holding Terborg equally assented: 'You are quite right, Miss Lindersen.'

CHAPTER III.

HOLDING TERBORG.

IT may have been about an hour later that I heard Dr. Terborg apologize to Miss Lindersen for his early departure as he left the room. One finds one's self at times strangely under the spell of a dream. Mine had once more taken full possession of my soul. It drew me as by an invisible cord after the departing guest, and, it must be owned, without so much as fulfilling the duties of politeness by taking a formal leave of my obliging hostess. But the fear of losing sight of the cause of my departure led to my unceremonious exit.

The stars shone bright outside in the clear frosty night, and I distinctly heard the sound of his footsteps, though some distance ahead.

But now a sudden doubt seized me. I was still quite young, and had no ground whatever for presuming on the formation of any intimacy between Dr. Terborg and myself.

And so I walked, if somewhat faster than the man I followed, yet undecided, and I should probably have passed him without word or salutation. At the sound of my approaching footsteps, however, he turned round, recognised me, and said in a friendly

tone:

'So you, too, like myself, are seized with the desire for solitude? And yet at your age men are usually more disposed for society.'

A lantern suspended over the middle of the street, as was the fashion in our fathers' times, enabled him to discern my features, but I could not help feeling surprised that he remembered me, for the assembly had been a very large one, and we had been drawn into no special intercourse with each other.

This little speech, however, strengthened my wavering resolution, and gave me at the same time a suitable pretext, so I replied:

To tell you the truth, your departure was the cause of mine; but as you say that you left the company in order to be alone, I must apologize for the desire I felt to walk home with you.'

He replied:

'It was not utter solitude I sought. Life brings along with it enough of that.' And then he continued: 'Plain speaking saves much beating about the bush, and perhaps the total failure of one's purpose. But it is seldom anyone says what he really thinks and feels.'

The words escaped me :

'You did this evening, and thereby gave utterance and import to a vague feeling of my own.'

He slowly resumed his walk, tacitly accepting my proffered companionship. To my last remark he replied:

'I read in your eyes that you agreed with me: once their language learned, they rarely deceive, only it requires time. He walked on awhile in silence by my side, and then asked: 'How came you to be introduced to Miss Lindersen ?'

I explained the reason, adding that the society she received had been described to me as the most cultured in the town. My companion stood still for a moment as he answered:

'And justly so; everywhere you will hear the same opinion expressed, as well as the desire to visit there. It is as good an assembly as can possibly be found of well-educated people, all interested in intellectual pursuits. They cannot change their

nature; they bring with them the results of diversified talent, education, and development, and of course there must be much that is narrow-minded and prejudiced in their views-nay, even faulty, conceited, and ostentatious. But they are led by the majority, and are convinced that the views they have adopted are true. He who expects more from the world than this will meet with disappointment in every society.'

Holding Terborg ceased speaking. As we resumed our walk, I could not but own that, slight as was my acquaintance with him, I had been much surprised to find him in the midst of a social group with which he seemed to have so little affinity.

Affinity? With whom is it to be found? That is a word for the youthful—it is a Fata Morgana, dazzling in its beauteous forms and hues. Men strive to reach it, but the brilliant phantom ever eludes their grasp, till they become themselves dull, deadened. And so they find themselves at last before a stunted bush on the parched moor; they take it for the waving palms that were mirrored in ocean's blue, and accept consciously or unconsciously the wretched reality of life. It is the impulse that leads a mortal to seek for a fellowmortal in order to escape a dreary solitude; he who has been reared in it feels its weight the most keenly. Whether we feel for our fellow-men hatred or love, we find ourselves drawn again and again to mingle with them. The man who reaches maturity finds himself face to face with this continual struggle between reason and feeling, and, as with the inscrutable laws of nature, he can but attest their existence, very rarely trace their origin.

Why do plants produce such varied leaves and flowers? Why do we find among the wild beasts such a variety of disposition? These are simple facts which science tries in elaborate disquisitions to account for, but which we, in our short lease of life, can only accept as a something unalterable. In consequence of our tendency to judge everything by our own standard, we are prone to look upon the dog's fidelity as deserving of praise, and yet we have no right to blame the cat for being deficient in this virtue. And our observation of mankind should lead to a similar conclusion. Men are dependent on natural endowment with regard to their capacity both of soul and intellect, and they cannot overstep their appointed limits. Those who think and feel as we do attract our love,

and we seek their society; but those whom we fail to comprehend, who are uncongenial in thought and feeling, have often more claim on our pity than on our censure; and our own title to independence merely gives us the right to check any control they may seek to exercise over our personal views. It was thus I myself acted this evening during the discussion in which Miss Lindersen, much against my will, obliged me to express my opinion. For I knew very well beforehand that there was not one amongst the company present capable of understanding my ideas.

'With the exception of yourself,' continued Terborg, as he again stopped, 'and you were a stranger to me.'

We had reached the door of his dwelling, and I was on the point of bidding him good-night, when he added:

'But we ought to see a little more of each other, I think. It is not late '—he cast a hasty glance towards the heavens'scarcely ten o'clock. If you will accompany me a few steps further'

With thanks I gladly accepted the unhoped-for invitation; his whole personality had for me a singular attraction.

As we ascended the staircase, I remarked that he seemed well versed in telling the hour from the stars. With an assenting nod he replied:

They are the most reliable of clocks, and do not need setting right once in fifty years. When a lad I never had a watch in my pocket, but had to study the stars in order to know the time.'

We entered a room; my companion lighted a small lamp; it shed a soft radiance through the apartment. As he did so he remarked :

'How quickly and easily we can now change night into day! It is a constant marvel for one who has watched the care with which the good housewife in former days would rake her fire in order to secure light and heat for the morrow. We never have occasion nowadays to run with the shovel into a neighbour's house and back through the rain with the red coals. Man has become a Prometheus.'

The voice of Holding Terborg was in perfect keeping with his tall muscular frame, but yet there mingled with his manly tones some gentle chords that breathed a tender melancholy. He seemed to me quite a different being from him whom I had met in Miss Lindersen's drawing-room. There one might

have passed him by unnoticed. Within his own walls he impressed you at once as someone remarkable, and yet you could not quite tell how to account for the impression. Everything about him was so thoroughly natural that the idea of his assuming any character or making any false pretence was wholly incongruous. One felt instinctively that he stood upon a pinnacle, apart from all human aims and efforts, and one could not help thinking that were a throne or the greatest wealth offered to him, it would not affect for a moment his well-balanced estimate of earthly things. In his youth he must have been singularly good-looking, and so, in spite of advancing years, he was still considered.

He went into an adjoining room in order to change his dress for a more comfortable house suit. This left me at liberty to examine the spacious sitting-room into which he had led me. It was evidently the study of a scholar. Books occupied the greater part of the walls. Here and there an old engraving told of a poet's taste for art. The furniture was very plain, but it indicated no lack of means. Some of the articles, however, were not such as one would expect to see in a bachelor's home. Over the writing-table, well lighted by the lamp, hung two half-length female portraits in oils, which were wonderfully executed; the artist seemed almost to have endowed them with life. The one was that of an aged woman, whose wrinkled features were crowned with hair wellnigh white; her coarse attire indicated a humble condition of life. The features did not suggest any extraordinary mental talent, but the blue eyes beamed with an expression that fascinated the beholder, and made him feel for a moment that it must be a youthful face which was gazing upon him from that picture.

The other painting was that of a matron, or maiden, not in her first youth, and dressed also in unusual garb; but as coming footsteps from the adjacent room prevented me from examining this picture more closely, I had only time to notice on the desk a paper-case, the cover of which bore, as an inscription, in large Latin letters, this enigmatic formula, 'S. Sp. E.,' when Holding Terborg entered, enveloped in a robe that recalled the gowns of the Middle Ages.

This costume suited him far better than the other he had been wearing, and his appearance suddenly impressed me with the stiffness and insignificance of the dress coat, and its power to destroy all individuality.

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