things. At last we reached the edge of the wood, sat down on a fallen
log, and looked out across an interval of meadow at the long wooded waves
of the Taunus. What my friend was thinking of I can't say; I was
meditating on his queer biography, and letting my wonderment wander away
to Smyrna. Suddenly I remembered that he possessed a portrait of the
young girl who was waiting for him there in a white-walled garden. I
asked him if he had it with him. He said nothing, but gravely took out
his pocket-book and drew forth a small photograph. It represented, as
the poet says, a simple maiden in her flower--a slight young girl, with a
certain childish roundness of contour. There was no ease in her posture;
she was standing, stiffly and shyly, for her likeness; she wore a short-
waisted white dress; her arms hung at her sides and her hands were
clasped in front; her head was bent downward a little, and her dark eyes
fixed. But her awkwardness was as pretty as that of some angular seraph
in a mediaeval carving, and in her timid gaze there seemed to lurk the
questioning gleam of childhood. "What is this for?" her charming eyes
appeared to ask; "why have I been dressed up for this ceremony in a white
frock and amber beads?"

"Gracious powers!" I said to myself; "what an enchanting thing is
innocence!"

"That portrait was taken a year and a half ago," said Pickering, as if
with an effort to be perfectly just. "By this time, I suppose, she looks
a little wiser."

"Not much, I hope," I said, as I gave it back. "She is very sweet!"

"Yes, poor girl, she is very sweet--no doubt!" And he put the thing away
without looking at it.