308 FRAU CAROLINE IN PARIS. 



William Yon Humboldt. The lady was Frau Caroline, 

 and the letter was from Alexander. It was dated in 

 March, at Havana, and announced his speedy return 

 from the New World. Two or three months had passed 

 since it was received in Rome, and yet there were no 

 tidings of him. None, at least, that they wished to 

 believe. There was at one time an ugly report that he 

 had died of the yellow fever, but it lacked confirmation, 

 they thought. So Frau Caroline, who had been spend- 

 ing a few weeks at Weimar, with her friend Schiller, 

 had come up to Paris to see if she could not learn some- 

 thing definite concerning the long-absent Alexander. 



While she was sitting there with his letter before her, 

 that pleasant August day, there came a tap at the door, 

 and a note was handed her by a messenger. It was 

 from the Secretary of the National Institute, announcing 

 the arrival of the traveller in the Garonne. He was 

 then at Bordeaux, and would shortly be in Paris. Her 

 heart was lightened of one load ; her pale cheek kindled, 

 and snatching a pen, she wrote the good news to her 

 husband. 



In a few days Alexander himself appeared. 



From time to time during his five years' absence, 

 rumours of his travels were noised abroad, and he was 

 much talked about, not only by scientific men, who 

 naturally felt a deep interest in him and his pursuits, but 

 by the world at large. Great changes had been wrought 

 since he left ; battles had been fought, before which the 

 famous fields of antiquity must " pale their ineffectual 

 fires :" empires had risen and fallen, or were tottering to 

 their fall, yet he was not forgotten. The crash of empires, 

 the thunder of battles had not drowned the " still small 



