unseasonable-looking blossom. The ground
was damp, and the tall fir-trees which in
August had shed a grateful shade, on this
November noon seemed only to give a dreary
dampness to the remoter walks of the garden.
(Do not I, the writer, know the spot well?
And was I not there, also, on the day when
Max decided to leave?)

For some time the friends walked on in
silence, downcast and abstracted, as if the
gloomy influence of the air and scene
unconsciously affected them. At length Ernest
broke out of the dreamy mood, and said:

"Max, my friend. I can perfectly understand
that you are glad to begin life; but how
is it you are going to be a doctor? I thought
music was to be the profession? How
came draughts and boluses to take the place
of Mozart and Beethoven? When I
attended the pretty Opera you composed for
the little theatre up at the castle yonder, you
seemed to say you meant one day to be
Kapel-Meister at this picturesque old town.
And must I now renounce all hope of receiving
a ticket, from you, admitting me to the
first performance of the first grand opera in
five acts, of the most illustrious maestro Max
von Nierstein?"

"No!" replied Max. "Don't give up all
hopes of that. I mean to have two strings
to my bow, or rather to my fiddle. Physic is
to get me bread; music is to win me fame.
Many an evening at Bologna, after I have
attended the doctorial classes, I shall be
playing on my piano—for a piano I must
have. Do you know, I think I shall have
more time for music, at Bologna than here;
for Gretchen is always practising on the
piano at the castle, and then the children
make such a noise! Not but what I should
have preferred studying music outright,
under Mercadante at Naples, to poring over
Paracelsus at Bologna. But, you know how
I stand. My father's second marriage and
second family of children have (as he says)
taken all his money; and I assure you
I could not bear any longer the hints
thrown out to me, which all amounted
to this, 'Go, and get your own living!'
So, the other day, when my old uncle—the
prelate, you know, of the Benedictine
convent—sent for me, and, in a few words, told
me that, for my dead mother's sake, he
would do something for me, but that he
restricted that something to enabling me to
become either a priest or a physician; I, of
course, closed with the offer of the latter
vocation, for I have no call to the church.
And then, you know, my engagement with
Caroline Marschner——"

"Yes, yes, my friend," said Ernest; "I
know all about that, and how wretched, too,
you must be up at the castle since your own
brother and sister died and the new family
came in."

"Assuredly," replied Max: "it is not a
pleasant position to be hourly reminded that
you are a superfluity in your own father's
house. But we must not speak of that."

And then the brave young fellow shook
himself as if to throw off any unmanly
I emotion, and said in a cheerful tone:

"O! I shall be very happy at Bologna!"

"Does Fräulein Marschner know you are
going to leave us?" asked Ernest.

"She does," answered Max; "and, I am
glad to say, her family seemed pleased that I
am about to study a profession in earnest.
They almost sanction our engagement,
conditionally, and my dear Caroline is full of
hope. I am sure, come what will, I may
depend on her fidelity! I am to see her
again to-night—and, to say the truth, that
was the chief reason why I appointed to meet
the Green-caps so late."

What a jolly scene it was at the Blaue
Stern that night! Eleven o'clock was come.
As Max entered the room where his
companions were all assembled, a loud Vivat!
shook the wreaths of smoke that the students
had been breathing out thicker and thicker
for the last two hours, and seemed to clear
the scene of action for a while, as flashes from
cannon make visible for a moment the ships
which had thundered forth their vollies, till
they were hidden in their own sulphureous
canopy.

"Hurrah for Doctor Max!" said one of the
gay set. " And now let us sing—Gaudeamus
igitur, Juvenes dum sumus!"

The song was sung. Other songs were
sung. Loud was the noise. But there was
something more sympathetic, more refined,
in the mirth than there would have been, in
the jollity of young Englishmen, meeting
under similar circumstances—more refined,
and yet much madder. Such gripes of the
fist, such embracing! Now, as the hours
have passed the bridge of midnight, and the
fun is still more fast and furious, and all the
Adelaides and Carolines (absent of course,)
have been toasted, with stamping of feet
and knocking on the table, the mad students
scarcely knowing what freak to be at, at
once to demonstrate and relieve their exuberant
enthusiasm, propose a sort of Freischutz
oath, to be forthwith administered.

"Here we are!" shouted the loudest of
the party—Fritz by name. "Here we all
are, and it would be a shame to separate
without doing something madder than ever
we did before, to signalise the last night we
spent together before Max's departure for
Bologna. Green-caps! I propose that we all
solemnly swear to meet here again, on this
spot, in this room, exactly this day twelve-
month, to celebrate the return of Max from
Bologna!"

"But will he return?" asked the more
sober Johann.

"I shall!" answered Max for himself.
"Nay! I mean I WILL! For, even if there
is no vacation just at this time, I'll manage,
to get away."