drew back his hand, filled only with seaweed, and dripping with
briny tears!--And between him and those golden sands, a radiant
image floated, like the spirit in Dante's Paradise, singing
"Ave-Maria!" and while it sang, down-sinking, and slowly vanishing
away.

The truth is, that in all things he acted more from impulse than
from fixed principle; as is the case with most young men. Indeed,
his principles hardly had time to take root; for he pulled them all
up, every now and then, as children do the flowers they have
planted,--to see if they are growing. Yet there was much in him
which was good; for underneath the flowers and green-sward of
poetry, and the good principles which would have taken root, had he
given them time, therelay a strong and healthy soil of common
sense,--freshened by living springs of feeling, and enriched by many
faded hopes, that had fallen upon it like dead leaves.




CHAPTER IV. THE LANDLADY'S DAUGHTER.



"Allez Fuchs! allez lustig!" cried the impatient postilion to his
horses, in accents, which, like the wild echo of the Lurley Felsen,
came first from one side of the river, and then from the
other,--that is to say, in words alternately French and German. The
truth is, he was tired of waiting; and when Flemming had at length
resumed his seat in the post-chaise, the poor horses had to make up