As Flemming sat meditating on these things, he paid new homage in his heart to the beauty and excellence of the female character.  He thought of the absent and the dead; and said, with tears in his eyes;

“Shall I thank God for the green Summer, and the mild air, and the flowers, and the stars, and all that makes this world so beautiful, and not for the good and beautiful beings I have known in it?  Has not their presence been sweeter to me than flowers?  Are they not higher and holier than the stars?  Are they not more to me than all things else?”

Thus the morning passed away in musings; andin the afternoon, when Flemming was preparing to go down to the lake, as his custom was, a carriage drew up before the door, and, to his great astonishment, out jumped Berkley.  The first thing he did was to give the Postmaster, who stood near the door, a smart cut with his whip.  The sufferer gently expostulated, saying,

“Pray, Sir, don’t; I am lame.”

Whereupon Berkley desisted, and began instead to shake the Postmaster’s wife by the shoulders, and order his dinner in English.  But all this was done so good-naturedly, and with such a rosy, laughing face, that no offence was taken.

“So you have returned much sooner than you intended;” said Flemming, after the first friendly salutations.

“Yes,” replied Berkley; “I got tired of Ischel,—­very tired.  I did not find the friends there, whom I expected.  Now I am going back to Salzburg, and then to Gastein.  There I shall certainly find them.  You must go with me.”

Flemming declined the invitation; and proposedto Berkley, that he should join him in his excursion on the lake.

“You shall hear the grand echo of the Falkenstein,” said he, “and behold the scene of the Bridal Tragedy; and then we will go on as far as the village of Saint Wolfgang, which you have not yet seen, except across the lake.”

“Well, this afternoon I devote to you; for to-morrow we part once more, and who knows when we shall meet again?”

They went down to the water’s side without farther delay; and, taking a boat with two oars, struck across an elbow of the lake towards a barren rock by the eastern shore, from which a small white monument shone in the sun.

“That monument,” said one of the boatmen, a stout young lad in leather breeches, “was built by a butcher, to the glory of Saint Wolfgang, who saved him from drowning.  He was one day riding an ox to market along the opposite bank; when the animal taking fright, sprang into the water, and swam over to this place, with the butcher on his back.”

“And do you think he could have done this,” asked Berkley; “if Saint Wolfgang had not helped him?”

“Of course not!” answered leather-breeches; and the Englishman laughed.

From this point they rowed along under the shore to a low promontory, upon which stood another monument, commemorating a more tragical event.