my Sunday fashion as before.  The porter did not speak another word; but, before he let me pass the entrance, he stopped me, and showed me some objects on the wall over the way, while, at the same time, he pointed backwards to the door.  I understood him:  he wished to imprint the objects on my mind, that I might the more certainly find the door, which had unexpectedly closed behind me.  I now took good notice of what was opposite me.  Above a high wall rose the boughs of extremely old nut-trees, and partly covered the cornice at the top.  The branches reached down to a stone tablet, the ornamented border of which I could perfectly recognize, though I could not read the inscription.  It rested on the top-stone of a niche, in which a finely wrought fountain poured water from cup to cup into a great basin, that formed, as it were, a little pond, and disappeared in the earth.  Fountain, inscription, nut-trees, all stood perpendicularly, one above another:  I would paint it as I saw it.

Now, it may well be conceived how I passed this evening, and many following days, and how often I repeated to myself this story, which even I could hardly believe.  As soon as it was in any degree possible, I went again to the Bad Wall, at least to refresh my remembrance of these signs, and to look at the precious door.  But, to my great amazement, I found all changed.  Nut-trees, indeed, overtopped the wall; but they did not stand immediately in contact.  A tablet also was inserted in the wall, but far to the right of the trees, without ornament, and with a legible inscription.  A niche with a fountain was found far to the left, but with no resemblance whatever to that which I had seen; so that I almost believed that the second adventure was, like the first, a dream, for of the door there is not the slightest trace.  The only thing that consoles me is the observation, that these three objects seem always to change their places.  For, in repeated visits to the spot, I think I have noticed that the nut-trees have moved somewhat nearer together, and that the tablet and the fountain seem likewise to approach each other.  Probably, when all is brought together again, the door, too, will once more be visible; and I will do my best to take up the thread of the adventure.  Whether I shall be able to tell you what further happens, or whether I shall be expressly forbidden to do so, I cannot say.

This tale, of the truth of which my playfellows vehemently strove to convince themselves, received great applause.  Each of them visited alone the place described, without confiding it to me or the others, and discovered the nut-trees, the tablet, and the spring, though always at a distance from each other; as they at last confessed to me afterwards, because it is not easy to conceal a secret at that early age.  But here the contest first arose.  One asserted that the objects did not stir from the spot, and always maintained the same distance; a second averred that they did move,