From this night Carmen’s intercourse with Alexander assumed a much more friendly character; but was, of course, very brief, as only two more days remained ere the pleasant party at Wollmershain would be broken up, and Adele and Carmen return to their duties.

CHAPTER VI.

“Dear old home!  At last I see you again!” exclaimed a lonely traveller, as he stood leaning on his staff, and viewed the scene before him.  He took off his hat, and folded his hands as if in silent thanksgiving.  Footsore and weary he seemed to have paused here to refresh himself with the sight of a place so dear to him.

There lay the little Moravian settlement, bathed in the soft glow of a summer sunset.  Bright clouds reflected a golden radiance on the pointed roofs and windows, and trembled on the bosom of the little stream, which, with gentle murmur, flowed at the stranger’s feet.  The dark shadows of the hills extended down into the valley opening on his right, and from the evening mist peeped out the old mill, which he remembered so well.  On the meadows around the alder-pond, the evening fog wreathed itself into fairy forms, and the fragrance of new-mown hay was borne on the breeze.

It was a lovely, peaceful picture, and seemed to affect the man very deeply.  And yet he had been in the midst of far grander, more sublime, more beautiful scenery than this!  He had crossed the ocean, and revelled in the contemplation of its grandeur.  He had dwelt under tropical skies, palms and magnolias shading his home, and the boundless riches of the West Indian world poured out at his feet.  He had looked upon the sacred waters of the Ganges, and gazed in wonder on the temples of Benares; had traversed “the home of the snows” on the Himalayas; and the ice crown of the Dhawalagiri had frowned on him, gigantic and mystical, as he sojourned in the green valleys below, rich with banana-groves and rice fields.  He had wandered over Mongolian steppes, and the stars of heaven had watched over him as he lay in the tent of the nomad; but never, through all, had the yearning for home been quenched within him.

“Home!” How the word recalls long-lost memories!  The mother’s gentle smile, the father’s loving word, as when, in childhood’s happy hours, we sought the beloved shelter at evening, and betook ourselves to innocent slumbers; and, although the child grows to be the gray-haired man, yet the sweet memories of peace and love never fade from his heart.  What changes life brings to us!  Thirty years ago this worn, weary traveller emigrated to the New World.  Then he was young, courageous, filled with all the bright hopes which a new life spread out before him.  What happiness he had known since then; what sorrow he had passed through; and ah, what guilt and remorse he had borne!