He went out, shutting the door behind him gently, and I went with him.  He did not walk very far.  About half-a-mile from the town there stood three or four old-fashioned houses, with projecting gables and low green verandahs sloping over their wide balconies, and it was in the first of these houses that Herr Ritter lodged.

He had only one room, a little dark, studious-looking apartment, scantily furnished, with a single window, opening on to the balcony, and in one corner a deep recess, within which was his bed.  There were some shelves opposite the window, and upon these several ponderous old tomes in faded covers; a human skull, and a few fossils.  Nothing else at all, except a tiny picture, hung upon the wall above the head of his couch; but this I did not see at first.

Later, when he had taken me out of his coat, and put me in water, in a little glass bowl, I was able to turn my great yellow eyes full upon the painting, and I saw that it was the miniature of a beautiful young girl, dressed in a very old-fashioned costume, and wearing upon her fair bosom a knot of crimson roses.  “Ah,” I said to myself, “there has been a romance in this old German’s life, and now there is—­silence.”

Chapter II.

Very early the next morning Battista came to see Herr Ritter.  In his hand the boy carried a large clay flowerpot, wherein, carefully planted in damp mould, and supported by long sticks set crosswise against each other, I beheld my own twining branches and pendulous tendrils; all of myself, indeed, that had been left the day before outside the cottage window.  Battista bore the pot triumphantly across the room, and deposited it in the balcony under the green verandah.

“Ecco!  Herr Ritter!” cried he, with vast delight.  “You see I don’t forget what you say!  You told me yesterday you liked the belladonna, so when you were gone I went and dug up its root and planted it in this pot for you, that you may always keep it in your balcony, and always have a bunch to wear in your coat.  Though, indeed, I can’t think how you can like it; it smells so nasty!  But you are a strange old darling, aren’t you, Herr Ritter?”

Battista had set down his pot now, and was looking into the old German’s face with glistening eyes.

“Child,” answered the Herr, smiling very gravely and tenderly, as one may fancy that perhaps a Socrates or a Plato may have smiled sometimes; “your gift is very welcome, and I am glad to know you thought of me.  These are the first flowers I have ever had in my little dark room; and as for the scent of them, you know, ’Tista, that is a matter of taste, isn’t it, just like color.”

“Yes,” quoth ’Tista, emphatically, “I like roses!”

But Herr Ritter interposed hurriedly.

“Tista, how is your mother today?”

“That is one of the things I came to talk about.  She is ill; too ill to rise this morning, and she wants to see you.  Will you come back with me, for I think she has something particular to say to you?”