as if by an officer on parade, and that when he gave the word ‘March,’ they would suddenly walk away in step, like the soldiers on the parade ground.  I explained this to my sister, and often when we were in our own street she would call out ‘March!’ to see if the long row of houses would not begin to move.  However, we liked the old part of Berlin better, where the streets, with their capricious and serpent-like windings, reminded us of the crooked alleys of Moscow.  The streamlets of the Spree exercised a powerful attraction over us.  Blondchen thought they played hide-and-seek with children, who would run through the streets to search for them.  They came suddenly into sight where one would least expect to see them, in the yard of a house in the Werderschen Market, behind an apparently innocent archway on the Hausvogtei Platz, at the backs of houses whose fronts betrayed no existence of any water near.  My sister so often longed to catch sight of the oily satiny sheen of the river’s light in unsuspected places that she would drag me off to note her discoveries.  She wanted all the varying sights of the Spree, which showed itself at the ends of alleys, or in courtyards or behind houses, suddenly to appear to her, so that she might have the right to first name her discovery.”

He was silent awhile, deep in memories of the past.  Then he said:  “If I have lingered over these childish reminiscences it is because I have not my Blondchen any longer.  On one of our wandering excursions we were caught in a heavy shower of rain, and became wet through.  My sister was taken ill with rheumatism, and eight days afterward we buried her in the churchyard.”

The mother soon followed Blondchen.  Sorrow over the child, and homesickness, combined with weak health, proved too great a strain.  Wilhelm remained alone with the dispirited and sorrowful old father, whom he never left except for his three years’ military service in the field.  Then the father, to shorten the time of separation, accompanied the army (in spite of his seventy years) as an ambulance assistant.  The following year he died, and Wilhelm was left alone in the world.

Loulou was not wanting in heart, and she had as much feeling as it is proper for an educated German girl to show.  By an involuntary movement, she held out her hand, which Wilhelm caught and kissed.  They both grew very red, and she looked wistfully at him with her eyes wet.  Had he understood the look, and been of a bold nature, he would have clasped the girl to his breast and kissed her.  Her red lips would have made scarcely any resistance.  But the confusion of mind passed quickly, the light afternoon sunshine and the sight of the people passing through the breach in the castle wall brought him to full consciousness, and the dangerous step was not taken.  Loulou recovered her sprightliness, and going back to his story asked him, “So you have been in a campaign?”

“Certainly.”