“How ridiculous,” I said with a little temper, “to go to a ruin by way of the boulevards!”

“Ah,” said my companion of complaisant manners, “you like Nature?  It is but the choosing.”

And Berkley, perfectly acquainted with the locality, directed our steps into a narrow path hardly traced through the woods.  Here at least were flowers and grass and sylvan shadows.  No sooner did I smell the balm of the pine trees than my heart resigned itself, with exquisite indecision, to the thoughts of Francine Joliet and the memories of Mary Ashburton.  I glanced at Berkley:  he seemed, in Scotch clothes, a little less impenetrable than he had appeared in white cravat and dress-gloves.  I cannot restrain my confidences when a man is near me:  I buttonholed Sylvester, and I made the plunge.  “I used to talk of the Alt-Schloss,” I murmured, “with one whom I have lost.”

“Ah, I comprehend:  with my late uncle, perhaps.”

“No, sir, not with any cynic in a tub, but with a maiden in her flower.  It was one of the best points I made with Miss Ashburton.”

“The Alt-Schloss is indeed a picturesque construction,” said the diplomate, by way of generally inviting my confidence.

“We were conversing about the poems of Salis and Matthisson,” I pursued.  “I had in my pocket a little translation of Salis’s song entitled ‘The Silent Land,’ and endeavored to bend the dialogue in a suitable direction, but these allusions are incredibly hard to introduce in conversation, and we happened to stray upon Baden-Baden.  I asked Miss Ashburton if she had been here, and she answered, ’Yes, the last summer.’  ‘And you have not forgotten?’ I suggested—­’The old castle,’ she rejoined.  ’Of course not.  What a magnificent ruin it is!’”

[Illustration:  ENTRANCE TO THE ALT-SCHLOSS.]

“What tact your friend displayed,” said Berkley, “to feign utter unconsciousness of the green tables, and see nothing but ruins in Baden-Baden!”

“Permit me to say,” I replied quickly, “that it is not agreeable to me to have that lady alluded to, however distantly, in connection with gambling-tables.  The Ashburtons had been probably drinking the waters, for her mother was noticeably stout and florid.  But to continue with the poets.  I explained to her that the ruins of the Alt-Schloss had suggested to Matthisson a poem in imitation of an English masterpiece.  Matthisson made a study of Gray’s ‘Elegy,’ and from it produced his ‘Elegy on the Ruins of an Ancient Castle.’  Miss Ashburton became nationally enthusiastic, and said she should like very much to see the poem.  Her wish was usually my law, but the translation of the other song being in my pocket, I was obliged to palm it off upon her; and after conceding that Matthisson had written his ‘Elegy’ with unwonted inspiration, I sailed in upon that tide of feeling—­with a slight inconsequence, to be sure—­and declaimed my version from Salis.  Miss Ashburton, sir, was obliged to turn away to hide her tears.”