have put such strange ideas into your head? How can you imagine—"
He again interrupted me in the same tone—
"People say you have no shadow. In short, let me see your shadow, or give me my dismissal."
Bendel, pale and trembling, but more collected than myself, made a sign to me. I had recourse to the all-powerful influence of gold. But even gold had lost its power—Rascal threw it at my feet: "From a shadowless man," he said, "I will take nothing."
Turning his back upon me, and putting on his hat, he then slowly left the room, whistling a tune. I stood, with Bendel, as if petrified, gazing after him.
With a deep sigh and a heavy heart I now prepared to keep my engagement, and to appear in the forester's garden like a criminal before his judge. I entered by the shady arbor, which had received the name of Count Peter's arbor, where we had appointed to meet. The mother advanced with a cheerful air; Minna sat fair and beautiful as the early snow of autumn reposing on the departing flowers, soon to be dissolved and lost in the cold stream.
The ranger, with a written paper in his hand, was walking up and down in an agitated manner, and struggling to suppress his feelings—his usually unmoved countenance being one moment flushed and the next perfectly pale. He came
