“The Baron of Arnheim, for an instant, stood without breath or motion.  At once, however, he seemed to recollect that it was his duty to welcome the fair stranger to his castle, and to relieve her from her precarious situation.  He stepped forward accordingly with the words of welcome on his tongue, and was extending his arms to lift her from the pedestal, which was nearly six feet high; but the light and active stranger merely accepted the support of his hand, and descended on the floor as light and as safe as if she had been formed of gossamer.  It was, indeed, only by the momentary pressure of her little hand, that the Baron of Arnheim was made sensible that he had to do with a being of flesh and blood.  ’I am come as I have been commanded,’ she said, looking around her:  ’you must expect a strict and diligent mistress, and I hope for the credit of an attentive pupil.’  After the arrival of this singular and interesting being in the castle of Arnheim, various alterations took place within the interior of the household.  A lady of high rank and small fortune, the respectable widow of a count of the empire, who was the baron’s blood relation, received and accepted an invitation to preside over her kinsman’s domestic affairs, and remove, by her countenance, any suspicions which might arise from the presence of Hermione, as the beautiful Persian was generally called.  The countess Waldstetten carried her complaisance so far, as to be present on almost all occasions, whether in the laboratory or library, when the Baron of Arnheim received lessons from, or pursued studies with, the young and lovely tutor, who had been thus strangely substituted for the aged Magus.  If this lady’s report was to be trusted, their pursuits were of a most extraordinary nature, and the results which she sometimes witnessed were such as to create fear as well as surprise.  But she accordingly vindicated them from practising unlawful arts, or overstepping the boundaries of natural science.  A better judge of such matters, the Bishop of Bamberg himself, made a visit to Arnheim, on purpose to witness the wisdom of which so much was reported through the whole Rhine country.  He conversed with Hermione, and found her deeply impressed with the truths of religion, and so perfectly acquainted with its doctrines, that he compared her to a doctor of theology in the dress of an Eastern dancing-girl.  When asked regarding her knowledge of languages and science, he answered that he had been attracted to Arnheim by the most extravagant reports on these points, but that he must return confessing ’the half thereof had not been told unto him.’