and fell into his arms.

"Czika, is it really you?"

"Yes, man with the blue eye," replied the child, eagerly and affectionately, still hanging on his neck; but then suddenly tearing herself away and anxiously looking toward the carriage:

"Is the other one there also?"

"No, Czika," said Oswald, knowing very well that the other of whom she spoke was Oldenburg. "But are you quite alone?"

"No, mother is with me; mother does not leave the Czika. Come and help me to collect the money again." And the child stooped down to pick up the coins that were half hid in the dust.

"Oldenburg's child among rope-dancers," said Oswald to himself, mechanically obeying the child's injunction and unconscious of what he was doing, kneeling down and picking up here and there the scattered pennies.

The highly-cultivated public thought this meeting of an apparently great personage with a rope-dancer's child, and their warm embrace, more remarkable than anything they had seen that evening. Young and old they crowded around them, forming a close circle, and apparently determined not to leave the place till they had solved the mystery of this extraordinary meeting.

Franz, who had witnessed the scene from the carriage, had scarcely been less amazed than the crowd. Very soon, however, he recollected the mysterious reports about a gypsy girl whom Baron Oldenburg was said to have harbored at his lonely house for several weeks, until she had escaped from him one fine day, and, with that rapidity of combination which is often found in strong heads, he at once concluded that Oswald, who no doubt was in the baron's secret, had recognized the gypsy girl in the beautiful genius. His next thought was to shorten the scene, for Oswald's sake mainly, and in order to diminish as far as possible the sensation which it had already produced. He jumped, therefore, from the carriage, hastened to Oswald, and said,

"Let us go on! At least till the crowd has dispersed."

At the same moment the director of the company, who had also observed the scene from the stage, on which he had harangued the public, pushed his way through the assembly. His curiosity to know what was going on, and his indignation at seeing the important business of collection interrupted at the critical moment, had made him forget that he still wore the costume of the red-nosed landlord, and that he, therefore, ought not to have mingled with the people unless he wished to sacrifice the dignity of his art. Franz was justly afraid that the tragi-comic scene might become decidedly disagreeable if that personage should join them, and therefore anticipated his questions by meeting him before he came near, and whispering to him in a tone just loud enough to be heard by the bystanders,

"I am a physician, sir. This young man (pointing over his shoulder at Oswald, who was still kneeling down with Czika) is rather eccentric. You understand. Here is something in compensation for the loss he may have caused you."

The man considered this explanation, which was given in a very solemn manner, perfectly satisfactory, since the possible loss was amply made up by the two silver dollars which Franz had slipped into his hand. He smiled cunningly, and said, pulling off his night-cap and bowing low,

"Understand, understand, your excellency. Only pray get him away quickly, so that the Czika can go on with the collection."

"Where are you staying?" inquired Franz.

"At the Green Hat, your excellency. Your excellency will rejoice a poor artist's soul if you will bestow upon him your gracious patronage."

"Well, well," said Franz, and then turning to Oswald, who had risen in the meantime,

"I pray you, Oswald, let us go on now. I know where these people are staying; you can go and see them some other time."

Oswald, who had recovered from his first overwhelming astonishment at finding Czika in such company, now saw very clearly the extraordinary character of his position, and knew too well how sensible his friend's advice was to neglect it any longer.

The Czika had shown the wonderful self-control which this remarkable child never lost but for a few moments, and was going on with the collection as if nothing had happened. She did not even cast a glance at Oswald as he went back to the carriage, almost forced to do so by Franz.

The carriage drove off. The crowd had quickly seized upon the fable of Oswald's insanity, which Franz had invented with such admirable presence of mind, and dispersed all the more rapidly as the increasing coolness of the evening air reminded them forcibly of the warm supper that awaited them in their warm rooms at home.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a few hours later. The evening had come completely. The mountains of Fichtenau were wrapped in their double veils of night and mist; on the dark sky a few lonely stars peeped here and there through the drifting clouds. The narrow streets of the little town were deserted; lights, however, were shining from the windows of the low, simple houses. People were sitting around the stove after their frugal suppers, and the husband told his wife, who for good reasons had not been able to venture into a crowd, what wonderful feats of strength, agility, and skill he had seen outside of the town on the great meadow; how an insane gentleman had driven up with his physician (who no doubt was bringing him to Doctor Birkenhain's great institution), and how he had embraced the pretty gypsy girl, who was going around with the plate, before all the people. The old, half-deaf grandmother, who was nodding in her arm-chair near the stove, and only heard half of what he was saying, remarked,

"Yes, yes! gypsies are the devil's children; everybody knows that. My sainted great-grandfather lent a hand when five of them were burned on the great meadow."

There was great feasting that night in the Green Hat, a low drover's inn near the gates of the town, and not far from the great meadow. The Green Hat was also the headquarters of all wandering rope-dancers, and therefore a most attractive place for all lovers of art among the people of Fichtenau.

The long table in the public room, which was filled with tobacco smokers, could scarcely hold the number of guests, although they were sitting closely enough on the hard benches. At the upper end, especially, the crowd was great, for there the artists sat and drank in the full consciousness of their dignity and the hearty enjoyment of a free treat. The director, Mr. Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, presided as a matter of course. He had laid aside all the insignia of the last part he had played, except a few patches of rouge which still adorned his bloated face; he had taken off his nightcap and the blue-checked apron, together with the pillow with which it was stuffed. He appeared now in the comfortable and elegant costume of a gentleman who has relieved himself of his coat and waistcoat, and who forgets, in the consciousness of his artistic fame and of his broad, richly-embroidered suspenders, that his linen is not of the cleanest. Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, who sat on the right hand of his lord and master, had been compelled to make a greater alteration in his toilette, especially since the artistic wardrobe boasted only of a single suit of stockinet, and it was therefore of the utmost importance for him to do all that could be done in order to preserve its delicate whiteness. Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, wore a short, gray coat with green trimmings, and would have looked, all in all, far more like a handsome Tyrolese (which was, by-the-by, his real character) than the son of the land