tore open the envelope, and read as follows:

"MY DEAR HERMANN,--It is fortunate that one of us at least should
have attained celebrity. I saw your name on the outside of a book of
which you are the author. I wrote at once to the publisher; that
obliging man answered me by return of post, and, thanks to these
circumstances, I am enabled to tell you that I will land at Hamburg
towards the end of September. Write to me there, Poste Restante, and
let me know if you are willing to receive me for a few days. I can
take Leipzig on my way home, and would do so most willingly if you
say that you would see me again with pleasure.

"Your old friend,

"HENRY WARREN."

Below the signature there was a postscript of a single line: "This
is my present face." And from an inner envelope Hermann drew a small
photograph, which he carried to the window to examine leisurely. As
he looked, a painful impression of sadness came over him. The
portrait was that of an old man. Long gray hair fell in disorder
over a careworn brow; the eyes, deep sunk in their sockets, had a
strange and disquieting look of fixity; and the mouth, surrounded by
deep furrows, seemed to tell its own long tale of sorrow.

"Poor Henry!" said Hermann; "this, then, is your present face! And
yet he is not old; he is younger than I am; he can scarcely be
thirty-eight. Can I, too, be already an old man?"

He walked up to the glass, and looked attentively at the reflection