Lingering over the tea-table where Gretchen presided with more than
youthful grace, we talked not only of the past, but of present work
and life.
"One," I continued, taking up the thread, "I met in Southern Italy,
dreaming; as I was dreaming, by the dark grotto of Pausilippo.
Meeting upon classic ground, it seemed strange to talk of old times,
but we did. And sitting down upon the promontory of Baiae, looking off
upon the blue sea, we told each other our respective stories; just as
ships will shift their course to come within speaking distance,
compare longitude, and exchange letters, and--part. I have not heard
from Eckerman since."
My dreams were pleasant that night, and the next morning there was
another surprise for me. Gretchen's brother was the pastor of a little
church just above them; I must not go without seeing him, Gretchen
said. How could I? Euler was my classmate; together we labored for
knowledge, and our first manly sympathies run in the same channel.
On Sabbath I saw my friend in the pulpit. "How like his father," I
whispered to Gretchen; the poetry in him warming his soul into a
burst of fervid eloquence, and his face glowing with the beautiful
truths he was unfolding to his hearers. An uncouth church of rough
stone, with quaint windows and curious carvings, the ceiling arched,
with a blue ground on which blazed innumerable stars. Strange and
novel as it was, my eye never wandered from the speaker; the voice and
expression so like the kind and generous man who had presided over the
college, and who carried with him the affections of each succeeding
class.
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