The Hunter refreshed his eye in this charming sight.  Intoxicated by the magic of Nature, he leaned back and closed his eyes in sweet reveries.  When he opened them again the scene had changed.

A beautiful girl in simple attire, her straw hat hung over her arm, was kneeling by the flower, gently embracing its stalk as if it were her sweetheart’s neck, and gazing into its red calyx with the sweetest look of joyful surprise.  She must have approached quietly while the Hunter was lying back, half asleep.  She did not see him, for the cliffs hid him from her sight; and he was careful not to make any motion that might frighten the vision away.  But after a while, as she looked up from the flower with a sigh, her sidewise glance fell upon the water, and she caught sight of a man’s shadow!  The Hunter saw her color pale, saw the flower drop from her hands—­otherwise she remained motionless on her knees.  He half arose between the cliffs, and four young eyes met!  But only for a moment!  The girl, with fire in her face, quickly got up, tossed her straw hat on her head, and with three swift steps disappeared into the bushes.

The Hunter now came out from among the cliffs and stretched out his arm toward the bushes.  Had the spirit of the flower become alive?  He looked at it again—­it did not seem as beautiful as it had a few minutes before.

“An amaryllis,” he said, coldly.  “I recognize it now—­I have it in my green-house.”

Should he follow the girl?  He wanted to—­but a mysterious shyness shackled his feet.  He grasped his forehead.  He had not been dreaming—­he was sure of that.  “And the occurrence,” he cried at last with something like an effort, “is not so extraordinary that it must necessarily have been a dream.  A pretty girl, who happened along this way, was enjoying a pretty flower—­that is all!”

He wandered about among unknown mountains, valleys and tracts of country, as long as his feet would carry him.  Finally it became necessary for him to think of returning.

Late, in the dark, and only through the help of a guide whom he came across by accident, he reached the Oberhof.  Here the cows were lowing, and the Justice was sitting at the table in the entrance-hall with his daughter, men and maids, about to begin his moral talks.  But it was impossible for the Hunter to enter into them—­everything seemed different to him, coarse and inappropriate.  He repaired immediately to his room, wondering how he could pass away any more time here without knowing what was going to happen.  A letter which he found there from his friend Ernst in the Black Forest added to his discomfort.  In this state of mind, which robbed him of part of his night’s sleep and even the following morning had not yet left him, he was glad indeed when the Pastor sent a wagonette to bring him to the city.