from me. At the same moment one of his companions made a sign with his hand towards me.

'What!' whispered I in horror-'a blow?'

A brief nod was the reply. Alas! from that minute all hope left me. Too well I knew the desperate alternative that awaited such an insult. Reconciliation was no longer to be thought of. I asked no more, but followed the group along the path towards the mill.

In a little garden, as it was called-we should rather term it a close-shaven grass-plot-where some tables and benches were placed under the shade of large chestnuttrees, Adolphe von Mühry stood, surrounded by a number of his friends. He was dressed in his costume as a member of the Prussian club of the Landsmanschaft-a kind of uniform of blue and white, with a silver braiding on the cuffs and collar-and looked handsomer than ever I saw him. The change his features had undergone gave him an air of manliness and confidence that greatly improved him, and his whole carriage indicated a degree of selfreliance and energy which became him perfectly. A faint blush coloured his cheek as he saw me enter, and he lifted his cap straight above his head and saluted me courteously, but with an evident effort to appear at ease before me. I returned his salute mournfully-perhaps reproachfully, too, for he turned away and whispered something to a friend at his side.

Although I had seen many duels with the sword, it was the first time I was present at an affair with pistols in Germany; and I was no less surprised than shocked to perceive that one of the party produced a dice-box and dice, and placed them on a table.

Eisendecker all this time sat far apart from the rest, and, with folded arms and half-closed eyelids, seemed to wait in patience for the moment of being called on.

'What are they throwing for, yonder?' whispered I to a Saxon student near me.

For the shot, of course,' said he; 'not but that they

might spare themselves the labour. Eisendecker must fire first; and as for who comes second after him

Is he so sure as that?' asked I in terror; for the fearful vision of blood would not leave my mind.

'That is he. The fellow that can knock a bullet off a champagne bottle at five-and-twenty paces may chance to hit a man at fifteen.'

'Mühry has it,' cried out one of those at the table; and I heard the words repeated from mouth to mouth till they reached Eisendecker, as he moved his cane listlessly to and fro in the mill-stream.

'Remember Ludwig,' said his friend, as he grasped his arm with a stronger clasp; 'remember what I told you.' The other nodded carelessly, and merely said, 'Is all ready?'

'Stand here, Eisendecker,' said Mühry's second, as he dropped a pebble in the grass.

Mühry was already placed, and stood erect, his eyes steadily directed to his antagonist, who never once looked towards him, but kept his glance fixed straight in front.

'You fire first, sir,' said Mühry's friend, while I could mark that his voice trembled slightly at the words. 'You may reserve your fire till I have counted twenty after the word is given.'

As he spoke he placed the pistol in Eisendecker's hand, and called out

Gentlemen, fall back, fall back; I am about to give the word. Herr Eisendecker, are your ready?'

A nod was the reply.

'Now!' cried he, in a loud voice; and scarcely was the word uttered when the discharge of the pistol was heard. So rapid, indeed, was the motion, that we never saw him lift his arm; nor could any one say what direction the ball had taken.

'I knew it, I knew it,' muttered Eisendecker's friend, in tones of agony. All is over with him now.'

Before a minute

elapsed, the word to fall back was

again given, and I now beheld Von Mühry standing with his pistol in hand, while a smile of cool but determined malice sat on his features.

While the second repeated the same words over to him, I turned to look at Eisendecker, but he evinced no apparent consciousness of what was going on about him; his eyes, as before, were bent on vacancy; his pale face, unmoved, showed no signs of passion. In an instant the fearful 'Now' rang out, and Mühry slowly raised his arm, and, levelling his pistol steadily, stood with his eye bent on his victim. While the deep voice of the second slowly repeated one-two-three-four-never was anything like the terrible suspense of that moment. It seemed as if the very seconds of human life were measuring out one by one. As the word 'ten' dropped from his lips, I saw Mühry's hand shake. In his revengeful desire to kill his man, he had waited too long, and now he was growing nervous; he let fall his arm to his side, and waited for a few seconds, then raising it again, he took a steady aim, and at the word 'nineteen' fired.

A slight movement of Eisendecker's head at this instant brought his face full front; and the bullet, which would have transfixed his head, now merely passed along his cheek, tearing a rude flesh-wound as it went.

A half-cry broke from Mühry: I heard not the word; but the accent I shall never cease to remember. It was now Eisendecker's time; and as the blood streamed down his cheek, and fell in great drops upon his neck and shoulders, I saw his face assume the expression it used to wear in former days. A terrible smile lit up his dark features, and a gleam of passionate vengeance made his eye glow like that of a maniac.

'I am ready-give the word,' cried he, in frantic impatience.

But Mühry's second, fearful of giving way to such a moment of passion, hesitated; when Eisendecker again called out, 'The word, sir, the word!' and the bystanders,

indignant at the appearance of unfairness, repeated the

cry.

The crowd fell back, and the word was given. Eisendecker raised his weapon, poised it for a second in his hand, and then, elevating it above his head, brought it gradually down, till, from the position where I stood, I could see that he aimed at the heart.

His hand was now motionless, as if it were marble; while his eye, riveted on his antagonist, seemed to be fixed on one small spot, as though his whole vengeance was to be glutted there. Never was suspense more dreadful, and I stood breathless, in the expectation of the fatal flash, when, with a jerk of his arm, he threw up the pistol and fired above his head; and then, with a heart-rending cry of 'Mein bruder, mein bruder!' he rushed into Mühry's arms, and fell into a torrent of tears.

The scene was indeed a trying one, and few could witness it unmoved. As for me, I turned away completely overcome; while my heart found vent in thankfulness that such a fearful beginning should end thus happily.

'Yes,' said Eisendecker, as we rode home together that evening, when, after a long silence, he spoke; 'yes, I had resolved to kill him; but when my finger was even on the trigger, I saw a look upon his features that reminded me of those earlier and happier days when we had but one home and one heart, and I felt as if I was about to become the murderer of my brother.'

Need I add that they were friends for ever after?

But I must leave Göttingen and its memories too. They recall happy days, it is true; but they who made them so -where are they?

CHAPTER XXII

SPAS AND GRAND DUKEDOMS

It was a strange ordinance of the age that made wateringplaces equally the resort of the sick and the fashionable,

the dyspeptic and the dissipated. One cannot readily see by what magic chalybeates can minister to a mind diseased, nor how sub-carbonates and proto-chlorides may compensate to the faded spirit of an ennuyée fine lady for the bygone delights of a London or a Paris season; much less, through what magnetic influence gambling and gossip can possibly alleviate affections of the liver, or roulette be made a medical agent in the treatment of chronic rheumatism.

It may be replied that much of the benefit-some would go farther, and say all-to be expected from the wateringplaces is derivable from change of scene and habit of living, new faces, new interests, new objects of curiosity, aided by agreeable intercourse, and what the medical folk call 'pleasant and cheerful society.' This, be it known, is no chance collocation of words set down at random; it is a bona fide technical-as much so as the hardest Greek compound that ever floored an apothecary. 'Pleasant and cheerful society!' they speak of it as they would of the latest improvement in chemistry or the last patent medicine-a thing to be had for asking for, like opodeldoc or Morison's pills. A line of treatment is prescribed for you, winding up in this one principle; and your physician, as he shakes your hand and says 'good-bye,' seems like an angel of benevolence, who, instead of consigning you to the horrors of the pharmacopoeia and a sick-bed, tells you to pack off to the Rhine, spend your summer at Ems or Wiesbaden, and, above all things, keep early hours, and 'pleasant, cheerful society.'

Oh, why has no martyr to the miseries of a 'liver' or the sorrows of 'nerves' ever asked his M.D. wherewhere is this delightful intercourse to be found? or by what universal principle of application can the same tone of society please the mirthful and the melancholy, the man of depressed, desponding habit, and the man of sanguine, hopeful temperament? How can the indolent and lethargic soul be made to derive pleasure from the