My toll-house, which I had to pass, was standing on the old spot, the tall trees in the castle garden were still murmuring above it, and a yellow-hammer, which always used to sing at sunset in the chestnut-tree before the window, was singing again, as if nothing in the world had happened since I last heard him.  The toll-house window was open; I ran up to it with delight and looked in.  There was no one there, but the clock in the corner was ticking away, the writing-table stood by the window, and the long pipe in the corner as of old.  I could not resist the temptation to climb through the window and seat myself at the writing-table before the big account-book.  Again the sunlight shone golden-green through the chestnut boughs upon the figures in the open book, again the bees buzzed in and out of the window, and again the yellow-hammer’s jocund song sounded from the tree outside.  All at once the door of the sleeping-room opened, and a tall, old Receiver, in my dotted dressing-gown, entered!  He paused on the threshold upon beholding me thus unexpectedly, took his spectacles quickly from his nose, and looked angrily at me.  Not a little alarmed, I started up, and, without saying a word, ran out of the door and through the little garden, where I was very nearly tripped up by the confounded potato-vines which the old Receiver had planted, evidently by the Porter’s advice, in place of my flowers.  I heard him as he came out of the door scolding after me, but I was mounted atop of the garden wall, and gazing with a throbbing heart over into the castle garden.

Ah, how the birds were flitting and twittering and singing!  The lawns and paths were deserted, but the gilded tree-tops nodded a welcome to me in the evening breeze, and on one side, up through masses of dark green foliage, gleamed the Danube.

Suddenly I heard sung from the depths of the garden—­

  “When the yearning heart is stilled
    As in dreams, the forest sighing,
    To the listening earth replying,
  Tells the thoughts with which ’twas filled,
    Days long vanished, soothing sorrow—­
    From the Past a light they borrow,
  And the heart is gently thrilled.”

The voice and the song were strangely familiar, as if I had heard them somewhere in a dream.  I pondered over and over again, and at last exclaimed, joyfully, “It is Herr Guido!” swinging myself quickly down into the garden.  It was the selfsame song that he had sung on the balcony of the Italian inn on that summer evening when I saw him for the last time.

He went on singing, while I bounded over beds and hedges toward the singer.  But as I emerged from between the last clumps of rose-bushes I suddenly paused spellbound.  For on the green opening beside the little lake with the swans, clearly illuminated in the ruddy evening light, on a stone bench sat the lovely Lady fair in a beautiful dress, with a wreath of red and white roses on her dark-brown hair, and