obtained her information. Were those reflections written now, or then? There was no date to them, and they were separated, by a considerable interval, from the leaf upon which I had been asked to draw, but it had not escaped my notice that this piece of prose was written with fresher ink than the preceding extract, dated a couple of years before. This, I thought, might be in my favour, but on the other hand my hopes might be built upon the sand.
It was nearly tea-time before the storm was over. Then Minna, who in the reaction from her nervousness had become quite jubilant, took a grey stone jar and went down to fetch water, and I followed her. The way of obtaining water at this spot was very romantic; there was neither well nor pump, but all the water had to be fetched from the spring close to the banks of the Elbe below the house. Just where the meadow-grass ended, and only separated from the running stream by three or four yards of stone and gravel, lay the little basin with clear water, that constantly bubbled up from the small stones and sand, which latter moved as if it was full of small living animalcules. We jokingly called it the spring of youth, after a fairy tale that old Hertz had told us one evening.
The breeze which met us was fresh and pure, with a healthy smell of wet earth mingled with the odour of moist foliage and grass, and spiced with the scent of flowers, especially of honeysuckle; an air which the lungs drink in deep draughts, in the same way that one enjoys a pure wine. The heavy clouds had parted; here they were rolling away in murky, smoke-like masses; there dissolving into fleecy vapour or vanishing like thin mist. Overhead, the sky shone a lilac blue; farther on there were patches of pale green, and golden rays were appearing in the west. Between the low-hanging clouds with their deep
