imagination, agitated him now in the most sensible manner. The reflection that he might still retain Mignon, and would not be compelled to dismiss the old harper, added no small weight to the balance, which continued to waver as he proceeded to pay his customary visit to his friend Aurelia,

CHAPTER XX.

He found her reposing on the bed. She appeared calm. "Do you think you will be able to act to-morrow ?" he enquired. "O, yes!" she answered," you know that nothing can prevent me. If I only knew some plan for preventing the applauses of the parterre. They are well meant, and yet they will kill me. Yesterday I thought my heart must surely break. Formerly I could endure it, when I had but myself to please. After long study and careful preparation, I rejoiced when the welcome sounds of applause echoed from every side. But now I speak no more what I wish nor as I would. I am swept along, I grow confused, and my acting produces a stronger impression. The applause increases, and then I ask, Are you aware what it is that enchants you? These dark, passionate, vague emotions affect you, compel your admiration, but you do not feel that they are the pangs of an unhappy being, upon which you bestow your applause.'

"This morning I learned my part, and I have just repeated and rehearsed it. I am weary-exhausted, and to-morrow I must do the same. In the evening the performance will take place. But I am indifferent to every thing. It is wearisome to rise, and fatiguing to return to bed. Every thing seems to revolve in a perpetual circle. Then come those painful consolations which I reject and execrate. I will never yield to necessity. Why should that be necessary which works my destruction? Could it not possibly be otherwise? I am paying the penalty for being a German:

S

It is the character of our nation to bear heavily upon every thing, and that every thing should bear heavily upon them."

"Ö, my dear friend!" interrupted Wilhelm, "could you but cease to sharpen the dagger with which you so perpetually wound yourself! Have you no comfort left? Are your youth, your form, your health, your talents nothing? If you lose one blessing undeservedly, must you throw all others after it? Can such a course be necessary

She remained silent for a few minutes, and then continued, "I know that love is loss of time, nothing but loss of time. What should I not have done? What could I not have done? But now all is vanished. I am a wretched, lovelorn creature-nothing better. Have compassion on me, I am poor and wretched.”

She remained absorbed in thought, and after a short pause, suddenly exclaimed, "You are accustomed to have every thing fly into your arms. But you do not understand, no man

can understand the worth of a woman who knows how to reverence herself. By all the images of blessedness which a pure and kindly heart can create, there is nothing more divine than the soul of a woman who gives herself to the man she loves! As long as we deserve the name of woman, we are cold, proud, high, clear-minded, and wise, but all these advantages we lay at your feet as soon as we love, -as soon as we hope to win a return of love. O! how designedly have I flung away my whole existence! And now for despair-deliberate despair! There flows no drop of blood within my veins that shall escape unpunished-no nerve that shall not suffer. Smile, ay! smile, if you will, at this theatrical display of passion."

But far distant from Wilhelm was every tendency to mirth: The painful condition of his friend, half natural and half excited, afflicted him too deeply. He shared the racking tortures of her distress. His brain whirled, and his blood was in a state of feverish agitation.

She had risen from her seat and was walking up and down the room. "I will know," she said, "why I should not love him. I know that he is not worthy of my love. I turn my attention to other things, and I keep myself employed,-no matter what occurs. Sometimes, I study a theatrical character, even though I do not require to act it, and I

rehearse all the parts with which I am thoroughly acquainted, and I practise them more diligently, more carefully; I rehearse them over and over again. O my friend, my trusting friend! who can tell what a painful task it is to tear ourselves from our own contemplations? My reason suffers, my brain whirls, and to save myself from madness, I again consent to think that I love him. Yes, I love, I love him!" she exclaimed, as she shed a torrent of tears, "I love him, and with this confession I am content to die."

He seized her hand, and, with a supplicating voice, he implored her not to abandon herself to such distress. "It is strange," he said, "that so much which seems both possible and impossible should be denied to men. It was not your destiny to meet with a faithful heart that should constitute your whole happiness. But it was mine to fix the whole joy of my life upon an unhappy being, who bent like a reed, and finally broke down beneath the weight of my constancy."

He had already confided his adventures with Mariana to Aurelia, and he might therefore make this allusion to them. She fixed her eyes upon him, and asked with a solemn voice, "Can you then assert that you have never betrayed a woman, that you have never sought to win her favour by thoughtless gallantry, by false protestations, or by deceitful

oaths ?"

"I can assert as much," said Wilhelm, "and that without much vanity. For my way of life has been so simple that I have seldom been exposed to the dangers of attempting seduction. And what a warning is your fate to me, my beautiful, my noble friend! Accept an appropriate vow which I pledge to you now, a vow which receives shape and form from the emotion which you have occasioned within me, and which is consecrated by the hour in which I pronounce it :-Henceforth I will subdue every transitory feeling of passion and bury it all within my bosom-no woman shall ever hear an avowal of love from my lips, to whom I cannot dedicate my life!"

She gazed at him with a look of wild indifference and retreated some steps, whilst at the same time she extended her hand to him. "Tis of little consequence!" she cried, a few woman's tears, more or less, matter not they will not swell the ocean. And yet, that one should be saved

amongst a thousand is something-that one honourable man should be found amongst a thousand, that too is something! Do you know what you have sworn?"

"I know it well," answered Wilhelm with a smile, and extending his hand.

"I take it," she exclaimed, and at the same time she made ́a movement with her right hand which gave him the impression that she was about to clasp it, but quickly, with the speed of lightning, she took a dagger from her bosom and drew the point and edge across his hand. He instantly withdrew his arm, but the blood was already flowing from the wound.

"We must mark you men distinctly when we mean to 'beware of you," she cried, with a sort of wild glee, which was soon converted into anxious attention. With her handkerchief she bound up his hand to stop the flow of blood. "Pardon me," she cried, with a manner half insane, "and do not regret these few drops of blood. I am appeased, I am now myself again. I crave your pardon on my knees. Let me enjoy the consolation of healing you."

She went to her press, brought forth a supply of linen and other things, staunched the blood, and watched the wound carefully. The cut went through the ball of the hand close to the thumb, dividing the lines of life, and extended to the little finger. She bound it up in silence with a significant and thoughtful look.. He inquired more than once, "How could you, dearest! so severely wound your friend ?'' "Silence!" she replied, as she laid her finger on her lips, "silence!"

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

WILHELM had thus, to his former wounds, which were as yet scarcely healed, added another, which threatened to prove extremely troublesome. Aurelia would not permit him to send for a surgeon. She herself attended him, but her strange speeches and ceremonies embarrassed him beyond measure. And her restlessness and singular conduct distressed not only him but every one whom she approached, and more especially the little Felix. This quick child bore the grievance with evident impatience, and the more she censured and corrected him, the more intractable he became. He had acquired some habits which are usually condemned, and which she never consented to encourage. For example, he was accustomed to drink out of the decanter in place of using a glass, and he generally preferred eating from the dish rather than from a plate. Such ill conduct did not pass unnoticed, and for his other faults, of slamming the door violently, or of leaving it open, of remaining motionless or running away when he received directions to do any thing, it was frequently his fate to hear a long lecture, which seldom produced the slightest effect. He seemed daily to become less partial to Aurelia, he called her "mother!" without any tenderness of tone, but was warmly attached to his old nurse, who allowed him in all things to have his own

way.

But she had lately become so indisposed, that she was removed from her house into a quiet lodging, and Felix would therefore have been left quite alone, if Mignon had not appeared to him in the form of a guardian angel. The two children amused each other in the most innocent manner. She taught him a number of little songs, which his excellent memory soon enabled him to recite to the great astonish