Thus it happened that the picture of my pretty Virlandaise threw me in a moment out of the world of realities into that of memory and fancy.
There looked down upon me the faithful companion of my labours and my recreations.

Every day she helped me to arrange my uncle's precious specimens; she and I labelled them together.

Mademoiselle Graeuben was an accomplished mineralogist; she could have taught a few things to a savant.

She was fond of investigating abstruse scientific questions.
What pleasant hours we have spent in study; and how often I envied the very stones which she handled with her charming fingers.
Then, when our leisure hours came, we used to go out together and turn into the shady avenues by the Alster, and went happily side by side up to the old windmill, which forms such an improvement to the landscape at the head of the lake.

On the road we chatted hand in hand; I told her amusing tales at which she laughed heartilv.