On "Araby's plains" I saw for the first time the beautiful wild palm, the "lighthouse of the desert," always an object of intense desire to the weary traveler as he traverses those sterile regions, for as it looms up in the distance, sometimes in groups, but more generally standing in solitary grandeur near a tiny bubbling spring, its waving plumes tell him not only of shelter and needed rest, but of water also to bathe his tired limbs and quench the burning thirst that oppresses him almost to death. Should the friendly tree prove a date-palm, he will find food also—a dainty repast of ripe, golden fruit, wholesome and nourishing—ready prepared to his hand. But, after all, to a traveler over those sterile regions water is the grand desideratum, and this he is sure to find in the vicinity of the wild palm. The Bedouins, who consider it beneath their dignity to sow or reap, gather the date where they can find it growing wild; but the Arabs of the plains cultivate the tree with great care and skill, thus improving the size and flavor of the fruit, and producing some twenty or more varieties. In some they have succeeded in doing away with the seed altogether; and the seedless dates, being very large and delicately-flavored, bring always the highest price in the market. Date-honey is made by expressing the juice of the fresh fruit, and the luxury of fresh dates may be enjoyed through the entire year by keeping them in tight vessels, covered over with this honey. Date-flour, made by exposing the ripe fruit to the heat of the sun until sufficiently dry to be ground into fine powder, furnishes the ordinary sustenance of the Arabs in their frequent journeys across the deserts. This is food in its most condensed form, easily carried and needing no cooking. It is simply moistened with a little water, and so eaten. But the value of the date tree is by no means confined to the fruit. An agreeable beverage, known as palm wine, is drawn from the trunk by tapping; the trunks of the old trees make excellent timber; the leaves are used for hats and baskets; and the fibrous part, when stripped out, makes twine and ropes. Even the stones are of use—the fresh ones for planting, and the dried are turned to account—in Egypt for cattle-feed, in China for the manufacture of Indian ink, and in Spain for making the tooth-powder known as "ivory black." The date is indigenous to both Asia and Africa: it was introduced into Spain by the Moors, and some few trees are still found even in the south of France. But the most extensive forests are those of the Barbary states, where they are sometimes miles in length. When growing thus in groves the palms are very beautiful, their towering crests waving in unison as they seem to form an immense natural temple, about which vines and creepers wreath their graceful tendrils, while birds of varied plumage sing their matin and vesper songs, plucking meanwhile the golden fruit that grows in clusters at the very summit of the tree. The Arabs' mode of gathering this fruit is odd enough. The trunk, sixty feet high, has not, it must be remembered, a single branch to hold on by or furnish a foothold; and, besides, the whole stem is rough with thick scales or horny protuberances, not very pleasant to the touch of fingers or palms. So a strong rope is passed across the climber's back and under his armpits, and then, after being passed around the tree, the two ends are knotted firmly together. The rope is next placed over one of the notches left by the footstalk of an old leaf, while the man slips the portion that is under his armpits toward the middle of his back, so as to allow the lower part of the shoulder-blades to rest upon it. Then with hands and knees he firmly grasps the trunk, and raises himself a few inches higher; when, still holding fast by knees and feet and one hand, he with the other slips the rope a little higher up the tree, letting it rest on another of these horny protuberances, and so on till the summit is gained. When the fruit is reached it is easily plucked with one hand, while the gatherer maintains his position with the other, and the clusters are thrown down into a large cloth held at the corners by four persons.

The far-famed banian or Indian fig (Ficus Indica) is perhaps the grandest of tropical trees—the most beautiful of Nature's products, even in that fertile soil kissed ever by the sun's rays, where she sports with such profusion and variety, clothing the earth in gorgeous flowers, variegated mosses and feathery ferns, till it seems to groan beneath the manifold treasures of beauty and fragrance lavished thereon. This noble tree grows wild in many Eastern countries and islands, and sometimes attains to a size and an extent that are marvelous to contemplate. Shoots are everywhere thrown out toward the ground from the horizontal branches, increasing in size as they tend downward, till at last they strike into the ground and become stems. From these shoot new branches, which in their turn extend and form roots and new stems, till at length a solitary tree becomes the parent of an extensive grove, appropriately characterized by the bard as "a pillared shade high overarched." And as they are thus continually increasing, seeming meanwhile almost exempt from the general law of decay, a tiny sapling borne to the spot in an infant's hand may come in time to cover thousands of feet of soil. Such a specimen is the noted Cubber Burr, growing on a picturesque little island in the river Nerbudda, near Baroach, in the province of Guzerat. This wonderful tree, named after a venerated Hindoo saint, occupies a space that exceeds two thousand feet in circumference. The principal stems number three or four hundred, and the smaller ones more than three thousand, though some have been destroyed by high floods, that have carried away not only portions of the giant tree, but of the banks of the island itself. The beauty and magnitude of the Cubber Burr are famous all over the East. Indian armies have encamped beneath its sheltering branches, and Hindoo festivals, to which thousands of votaries repair, are often held under its leafy shadow. I was told that seven thousand people could find ample shelter under its widespread branches; and we often knew of English gentlemen forming hunting or shooting excursions to the island, and encamping for weeks together beneath this delightful pavilion. Their only hosts were frolicsome monkeys and whole colonies of doves, peacocks, wood-pigeons and singing birds, that find a permanent abode among the thick foliage, and plentiful sustenance from the small, scarlet-colored figs that hang pendent from every branch. The banian tree may be regarded as a natural temple in Oriental regions, and the Hindoos especially look upon it with profound veneration. Tiny, fancifully-adorned temples and pagodas are erected beneath its shadowy boughs, where are pleasant walks and long vistas of umbrageous canopy, effectually shielded from the fierce rays of the tropical sun. Many Brahmins spend their entire lives within these quiet retreats, and all ranks and classes seek them for rest and recreation. The banian is styled also "the tree of councils," from the prevalent custom of assembling legislators, magistrates and savants under its protecting canopy to deliberate on civil affairs; while all around, ensconced in every niche, are the tutelary gods and goddesses that make up the Hindoo mythology. It is indeed a quaint, weird spot, full of the witchery of romance and legendary lore; and though years have passed since I last sat under the Cubber Burr's sheltering boughs with a merry party of picnicking maidens, now grown to womanhood, imagination still loves to roam among its shadows, and build fairy castles within the mazy windings of the hoary banian of Nerbudda's isle.

FANNIE R. FEUDGE.



A LOTOS OF THE NILE.

It was nine o'clock on a night of clear July starlight. The heat of the day had been intense, and all the guests of The Willows were assembled on the lawn, intent upon the effort of keeping cool, if such a thing were at all possible. A hopeless effort it seemed, however, for the heavy foliage of the trees hung quite motionless, and the fans which were plied unceasingly made the only possible approach to a breeze. Everything was so still that the voice of the river was distinctly audible as it fretted and surged along its rocky bed, distant at least a mile. The scene was full of the dim, mysterious look which makes summer starlight so fascinating. White dresses, shadowy faces, suggestive outlines of form and head, now and then the glimmer of an ornament: after one had looked long enough it was even possible to tell who was who, but at first the voices were the only clue to recognition. Behind the group rose the house, with light streaming from its lace-draped windows, the pictures and globe-like lamps of the deserted drawing-room making a charming effect.

Everybody had been silent for some time—that is, for half a minute, which seems a long time under such circumstances—when Mrs. Lancaster's voice broke the stillness. "Oh for a whiff of mountain-air or a sea-breeze!" she said. "I came to spend two weeks with you, dear Mrs. Brantley, and I have spent a month—who ever did leave The Willows when they meant to do so?—but I really must be thinking of taking flight. Suppose we get up a party for the White Sulphur?—it is always so tiresome to go away by one's self. Who will join it? Eleanor, will you?"

"I am not going to the White Sulphur this year," answered Eleanor Milbourne.

"Not going to the White Sulphur!" repeated Mrs. Lancaster in a tone of surprise. Then she laughed. "How stupid I am!" she said. "Of course I might have known that the temptation to break the pledge of total abstinence from flirtation would be too great in that paradise of flirtation. Besides, Mr. Brent's yacht is homeward bound, is it not?"

"I am not aware that there is any connection between Mr. Brent's yacht and my decision about the White Sulphur," answered Miss Milbourne haughtily. Then she turned to the person next her, a recumbent figure lying at full length on the grass. "I don't know anything of which one grows so weary as of watering-place life when one has seen much of it," she said. "Its pettiness, its routine, its vapidity, its gossip, all oppress one like a hideous nightmare. I don't think I shall ever go to a watering-place again."

"Take care!" said the recumbent. "Don't make an abstinence pledge of that kind: you will only be tempted to break it, for what will you do with yourself in summer?"

"I should like to travel. I am possessed with an intense desire to see the world and the wonders thereof."

"With a yacht such a desire would be easily gratified."

"But I have no yacht," said she with a sharp chord in her voice. It was an expressive voice at all times, and doubly expressive in this dim, mysterious starlight.

"Mr. Brent has, however, and I am sure he will be happy to place it at your service."

"You are very kind to answer for Mr. Brent."

"I answer for him because I judge him by myself. If I had a fleet it should be subject to your command."

"You are very generous," said she; and now there was a little ripple as of pleasure in her tone.

Meanwhile, Mrs. Lancaster was calling over the roll of the company like an orderly sergeant, intent upon beating up recruits for the White Sulphur. "Major Clare!" she said at last: "where is Major Clare?" Then, when the gentleman who had just offered Miss Milbourne his airy fleet responded lazily, "Here!" she added, "You will go, will you not?"

"I regret to say that it is impossible," he answered. "I have danced my last galop at the White Sulphur. This time next month I shall probably be en route for Egypt."

"For Egypt!" she repeated; and a chorus of voices instantly echoed the exclamation. "For Egypt! Nonsense! You are jesting."

"No, I am not jesting," said Victor Clare, lifting himself on one elbow: "I am in earnest. I received a letter from ——" (naming a distinguished officer) "to-day, offering me a position if I would join him in Cairo. I say nothing about what the position is, because my mind is not yet made up to accept it; and even if it were, such things should not be published on the house-tops. But if anybody here has a fancy for joining the army of the khedive, I may be able to give him a few important particulars."

Nobody responded. The gentlemen seemed to prefer enlisting under Mrs. Lancaster's banner for the White Sulphur. The ladies shrugged their shoulders and said the idea was dreadful, Victor Clare sank back in the grass and addressed himself to Miss Milbourne.

"There is nothing else for me to do," he said in an argumentative tone. "I only waste money on the impoverished acres of that old place of mine. The house itself is falling down over my head. What remains, then, but to go forth and tempt Fortune to do her best—or worst? At least the profession of arms has been in all ages the calling of a gentleman."

For a minute Eleanor Milbourne did not speak. She sat in the starlight a graceful, shadowy figure, furling and unfurling her fan with a slightly nervous motion. Perhaps she was uncertain what to answer. But at last she spoke in a very low tone: "Yet you said you had not decided."

"No, I have not decided. In truth, I have been rooted in idleness and indifference so long that I scarcely feel as if I cared enough about myself to take advantage of the offer. Then I cannot bring myself to think of selling Claremont, though I know that a penniless man has no right to the luxury of sentimental attachments. If I were in Egypt it would not matter to me that some upstart speculator owned the old place."

"I think it would," said Miss Milbourne.

"No, it would not" was the obstinate reply. "I should take care to find a lotos as soon as I reached the Nile. Whoever eats of that forgets his past life, you know. I have scant reason for wishing to remember mine," he added a little bitterly.

"Memory is certainly more often a sting than a pleasure," said Miss Milbourne. "It is strange," she added, "that we should both have thought of obtaining forgetfulness through the same means. When Mr. Brent asked me what he should bring me from Egypt, I said a lotos of the Nile. If he fulfills his promise I will share it with you."

"I am not sure that I care to be indebted even for forgetfulness to Mr. Brent," said Victor Clare ungratefully.

He was sorry the moment after for having spoken so curtly, and would have made amends by promising to accept a dozen lotoses if she desired to bestow so many upon him; but Miss Milbourne had already turned to her neighbor on the other side and plunged into conversation. "Is it not strange that Egypt should be waking from her sleep of centuries?" she said; and—while the gentleman whom she addressed took up the theme readily—Mrs. Lancaster rose and sauntered round the group to where Victor Clare was lying.

"Come, Monsieur Indolence, and take a walk," she said. "I think the policeman's motto is right—'Keep moving.' When one stops to think about anything, even about the heat, it makes it worse."

Now, however comfortable a man may be, if he is bidden to rise by a pretty woman who stands imperiously over him, the chances are that he obeys. So it was with Clare. He most assuredly did not want to go with Mrs. Lancaster, and quite as assuredly he did want to stay just where he was, with the hem of Eleanor Milbourne's dress touching him and a pervading sense of her presence near, even when she encouraged stupid people to expose their ignorance on the Egyptian question. Yet he found himself walking away with the pretty widow before five minutes had passed.

"I know you are not obliged to me," she said when they had gone some distance. "But your divinity is talking commonplaces, or listening to them, which amounts to the same thing; so I fancied you might spare me ten minutes. I want to know if that was a mere assertion for effect a minute ago, or if you are in earnest in thinking of going to Egypt?"

"I never talk for effect," said Victor with a hauteur that was spoilt by a slight touch of petulance. "I always mean what I say, and I certainly am in earnest in thinking of going to Egypt."

"May I ask why?"

"I am surprised that you should need to ask. One's friends usually know one's affairs at least as well as one's self—sometimes much better. Everybody who knows me knows that I am a poor man."

"Not so poor that you need go to Egypt in search of a fortune, however," said she, stopping short and looking at him keenly. "Confess," she added, "that you are about to expatriate yourself in this absurd fashion because Eleanor Milbourne means to marry Marston Brent."

"Your acuteness has carried you too far," said he laughing, but not quite naturally. "Miss Milbourne's matrimonial choice is nothing to me. I have thought of this step for some time. General ——'s letter is a reply to my application forwarded months ago. Yet now that the answer has come," he went on, "I scarcely care to grasp the advantage it offers. Indifference has infected me like a poison. I feel more inclined to rust out on the old place than to sound 'Boots and saddle' again."

"But why rust out?" she asked impetuously. "Are there not careers enough open to you?" Then, after a minute, "Are there not other women in the world besides Eleanor Milbourne?"

"Perhaps so," a little doggedly. "There are other stars in the heavens besides Venus, but who sees them when she is above the horizon?"

"How kind and complimentary you are!" said Mrs. Lancaster with a slight tone of bitterness in her voice.

"Forgive me," said he after a minute. "I am a fool on this subject, and, like a fool, I always say more than I mean. No doubt there are other women in the world even more beautiful and more charming than Eleanor Milbourne, but they are nothing to me."

"In other words, you are determined to believe that the grapes above your reach, instead of being sour, are the sweetest in existence."

"At least I harm only myself by such an hallucination, if it is an hallucination."

"But you may harm yourself more than you imagine," said she with a nervous cadence, in her voice. "For the sake of a hopeless passion for a woman who has no more heart than my fan you will sacrifice more than you are aware of—more, perhaps, than you can ever regain."

She laid her hand—a pretty, white hand, gleaming with jewels—on his arm at the last words, and it was fortunate, perhaps, that she could not tell with what an effort he restrained himself from shaking it impatiently off. A quick feeling of repulsion came over him like an electric shock. Hitherto he had been somewhat flattered, somewhat amused, and only occasionally a little bored, by the favor which the beautiful and wealthy young widow had so openly accorded him; but now in a second he felt that thrill of disgust which always comes to a sensitive man when he sees a woman step beyond the pale of delicate womanhood. If he had been one shade less of a gentleman, he would have said something which Mrs. Lancaster could never have forgotten. As it was, he had sufficient command of himself to speak carelessly. "I was never quick at reading riddles," he said. "I am unable to imagine what sacrifice I should make by indulging the 'hopeless passion' for Miss Milbourne with which you are kind enough to credit me."

"With which I credit you?" she repeated eagerly. "Am I wrong, then? If you can tell me that, Victor—"

But he interrupted her quickly: "You ought to know, Mrs. Lancaster, that this is a thing which a sensible man only tells to one woman; but, since you seem to take an interest in the subject, there is nothing which I need hesitate to acknowledge in the fact that, however hopeless my passion for Eleanor Milbourne may be, it is the very essence of my life, and can only end with my life."

"We all think that when we are young and foolish, and very much in love," said Mrs. Lancaster coolly—whatever stab his words gave the kindly darkness hid—"but I think you are more than usually mad. If she is not already engaged to Marston Brent, she will be as soon as he returns. I know that her family confidently expect the match, and in any case" (emphatically) "Eleanor Milbourne is the last woman in the world whom a penniless man need hope to win."

"I know that as well as you do," said Clare. "I have no hope of winning her, and I am going to Egypt next month."

He uttered the last words as if he meant them to end the subject, but it is doubtful whether they would have done so if they had not at that moment found themselves close upon the house, having paid little attention to the path which they were following. As they emerged from the shrubbery they were both a little surprised to see a carriage standing in the full glow of the light from the open hall door.

"Who can have arrived?" said Mrs. Lancaster, not sorry, perhaps, for a diversion. "I did not know that Mrs. Brantley was expecting any one."

"Who has come, Ellis?" Victor said carelessly to a young man who emerged from the house as they approached.

"Marston Brent," was the answer. "It seems the Clytie made a very quick trip, and came into port yesterday; so of course her owner has come at once to report his safe arrival at head-quarters."

Mrs. Lancaster, whose hand was still on Clare's arm, felt the quick start which he gave at this information, but she was a discreet woman, and she said nothing until they were standing on the verandah steps and he had bidden her good-night, saying that he must ride back to Claremont.

"I understand why you will not remain," she said; "but do not make any rash resolution about Egypt—above all, do not commit yourself to anything." Then she bent forward and touched his hand lightly. "Tell me when you come again that you will join my party for the White Sulphur," she said softly. "It will be the wisest thing you can do."

The result of this disinterested advice was, that as soon as he reached home, after a lonely, starlit ride of six miles, Clare sat down and wrote to General ——, accepting the position he had offered, and promising to report in Cairo as soon as possible.

After this it was several days before the future Egyptian soldier was seen again at The Willows. What went on in that gay abode during this interval he neither knew nor sought to know. He endeavored to banish all memory of the place and the people whom it contained from his mind. They were nothing to him, he told himself. It was impossible to say whether he shrank most from the pain of meeting Eleanor Milbourne with her accepted lover by her side, or from the thrill of disgust with which the mere thought of Mrs. Lancaster inspired him. He buried himself in listless idleness at Claremont for some time: then ordered his horse one day, rode to a neighboring town and made arrangements for the sale of his property with much the same feeling as if he had ordered the execution of his mother. It was when he returned weary and depressed from this excursion that he found a note from Mrs. Brantley awaiting him.

"DEAR MAJOR CLARE" (it ran), "why have you forsaken us? We have looked for you, wished for you and talked of you for days, but you seem to have determined that we shall learn the full meaning of the verb 'to disappoint.' Will you not come over to dinner to-day? I think you have played hermit quite long enough.

"Truly yours, L.M.B."

To say that Clare declined this invitation would be equivalent to saying that a moth of its own accord kept at a safe distance from the glowing flame which enticed it. As he read the note his heart gave a leap. He began to wonder and ask himself why he had remained away so long. Was it not the sheerest folly and absurdity? What was Eleanor Milbourne to him that he should banish himself on her account from the only pleasant house within a radius of twenty miles? A man should have some self-respect, he thought. He should not let every inquisitive fool see when and how and where a shaft has wounded him. Why should he not go? A heartache or two additional would not matter in Egypt. As for Mrs. Lancaster, he could certainly keep at a safe distance from her, even if she had not gone to the White Sulphur, as he hoped to heaven she had.

This devout hope was destined to disappointment. The first person whom he saw when he entered the well-filled drawing-room of The Willows was the pretty widow, in radiant looks and radiant spirits, not to mention a radiant toilette of the lightest possible and most becoming mourning. Despite his previous resolutions, Clare found himself gravitating to her side as soon as his respects had been paid to Mrs. Brantley—a fact which may serve as a small proof of the weakness of man's resolve, and his general inability to fight against fate, especially when it is embodied in a woman's bright eyes.

"What have you been doing with yourself?" she asked after the first salutations were over. "Have you been taking counsel with solitude on the Egyptian question? Or have you decided like a sensible man to go to the White Sulphur? Whatever has been the cause of your absence, you have at least been charitable in furnishing us with a topic of conversation. I scarcely know what we should have done without the 'Victor Clare disappearance,' as Mr. Ellis has called it, during the last week."

"I am sure you ought to be obliged to me, then," Clare said, flushing and laughing. "Assuredly I could not have furnished you with a topic of conversation for a whole week if I had been present."

"Opinion has been divided concerning the mystery of your fate," she went on. "One party has maintained that, rushing away in desperation when you heard of Mr. Brent's arrival, you started the next day for Suez; the other, that you were hanging about the grounds, armed to the teeth, and only waiting an opportunity to dare your rival to deadly combat."

"How kind one's friends are, to be sure, especially when they are in the country, and have nothing in particular with which to amuse themselves!"

"But what have you been doing? I should like to know, if you do not object to telling me."

"I have been very busy making my final arrangements for leaving the country," answered he, stretching a point, it must be owned.

"You are really going, then?" she asked after a minute's silence—a minute during which she was horribly conscious that her changing countenance might readily have betrayed to any looker-on how deeply she felt this unexpected blow.

"I wrote to General —— on the night I saw you last, accepting his offer," Clare answered. "Of course I am in duty bound, therefore, to report in Cairo as soon as possible."

"And you will sell Claremont?"

"I have no alternative."

She said nothing more, but he saw her hand—the same white jeweled hand that had gleamed on his arm in the starlight—go to her throat with a quick, convulsive movement. Instead of the thrill of repulsion which he had felt before, a sudden sense of pity and regret came over him now. He was not enough of a puppy to feel a certain keen enjoyment and gratified vanity in the realization of this woman's folly. He appreciated, on the contrary, how entirely she had been a spoiled child of fortune all her life—a queen-regnant, to whom all things must submit themselves—and he felt how bitter must be this first sharp proof of her own impotence to secure the toy on which she had set her heart. It was these thoughts which made his voice almost gentle when he spoke again: "You must not think that I am ungrateful for your kind interest in my behalf. You can imagine, perhaps, how much I hate to part with Claremont, which has been the seat of my family for generations; but when a thing must be done there is no use in making a moan over it. I cannot sacrifice my life to a tradition of the past; and that would be what I should do if I clung to the old place, instead of cutting loose with one sharp stroke and swimming boldly out to sea."

"But you might stay if you would," said she with that tremulous accent which the French call "tears in the voice."

"No, I could not stay," said Clare resolutely. "I have no money, nor any means of making any in America."

This ended the discussion. Even Mrs. Lancaster, fast and daring and willful as she was, could not say, "I have money—more than I know what to do with: take it." Her eyes said as much, but Clare did not look at her eyes. A minute longer passed in embarrassed silence. Then somebody came up, and Victor was able to walk away. As he crossed the room he saw Eleanor Milbourne for the first time since his arrival. He had not even inquired if she was still at The Willows, and her unexpected appearance, for he had begun to fear that she was gone, filled him with a rush of feelings of which the first and most prominent was delight. After all, did it matter whether or not she was engaged to Marston Brent? Simply to look at her was enough to fill a man's soul with pleasure, to steep him in that "dewlight of repose" which only a few rare things on this earth of ours are capable of inspiring. Did any sane person ever fly from the sight of Venus when she held her court all alone in the lovely summer heaven, because he could not possess her magic lustre for his own? The comparison was not at all highflown to Clare, whatever it may seem to anybody else. He had always entertained as much hope of winning the star as of winning the woman; and as for an abstract question of beauty, he would have held that Venus herself could not have surpassed Eleanor Milbourne. She was an adorable goddess whom any man might be content to worship from a distance, he thought; and he was preparing to go and sun himself in the glance of her eyes, which seemed like bits of heaven in their blueness and their fairness, when Mrs. Brantley touched his arm and bade him take a newly-arrived piece of white muslin in to dinner. Clare looked a little crestfallen, but against the decision of his hostess on this important subject what civilized man was ever known to revolt? He took the white muslin in to dinner, and had the satisfaction of finding himself separated by the length of the table from Miss Milbourne.

After dinner Mrs. Brantley claimed his attention. It seemed that there was a plan under discussion for showing the sole lion of the neighborhood—a hill of considerable eminence known as Farley's Mount—to the guests of The Willows. But it was distant twelve miles, What did Major Clare think of their starting early, breaking the ride by rest and luncheon at Claremont, then going on to the mountain, making the ascent, and returning by moonlight?

"It will not do at all," said Victor. "Twenty-four miles is too much to be undertaken on a July day by a mere party of pleasure. You would break yourselves down and see nothing. I propose an amendment: Take two days instead of one, and spend a night on the mountain. If you have never camped on a mountain, the novelty is well worth experiencing, and these midsummer nights have scarcely any length, you know. Then the sunrise is magnificent."

"That is exactly what we will do," cried Mrs. Brantley, clapping her hands with childish glee. And the proposal, being submitted to the company, was unanimously carried.

Meanwhile, Eleanor Milbourne was walking with Mr. Brent in the soft summer twilight on the lawn.

"You should not press me so hard," she said as they paced slowly to and fro. "I fear I can never give you what you desire, but I cannot tell yet. Grant me a little time."

"A little time! But think how much time you have had!" the gentleman urged, not without reason. "You said when I went abroad that you were not sure enough of your heart to accept me then, but that you would give me a final answer when I returned. You had all the months of my absence to consider what this answer should be, and when I came for it, spending not so much as an hour in tarrying on the road, I found that it was not ready for me—that I had yet longer to wait. Eleanor, is this kind? is it even just?"

"It is neither," said Eleanor, turning to him with a strange deprecation on her fair proud face. "I know that you have been everything that is patient and generous, and I am sorry—oh I am more than sorry—to have seemed to trifle with you; but what can I do? Remember that when I decide, it is for my whole life. You cannot doubt that I will hold fast to my promise when it is once given."

"I do not doubt it, and therefore I desire that promise above all things."

"But you would not desire the letter without the spirit?" said she eagerly. "I dare not bind myself—I dare not—until I am certain of myself."

"But, good Heavens!" said Marston Brent, who, although usually the most quiet and dignified of human beings, was now fairly driven to vehemence, "when do you mean to be certain of yourself? Surely you have had time enough. Can you not love me, Eleanor?" he asked a little wistfully. "If that is it—if that is the doubt that holds you back—say so, and let me go. Anything is better than suspense like this."

But Eleanor was plainly not ready to say that. She stood still for a moment, then turned to him with a sudden light of resolve in her eyes. "You are right," she said. "This must end. I may be weak and foolish, but I have no right to make you suffer for my weakness and my folly. I pledge myself to tell you to-morrow night whether or not I can be your wife. You will give me till then, will you not? It is the last delay I shall ask."

"I wish you would understand that you could not ask anything which I should not be glad to grant," said he, a little sadly. "For Heaven's sake, do not think of me as your persecutor—do not force yourself to answer me at any given time. I can wait."

"You have waited," said she gratefully—"waited too long already. Do not encourage me in my weakness. Believe that I will tell you to-morrow night my final decision."

Later in the evening, Victor Clare was leaving the drawing-room as Miss Milbourne entered it. They came face to face rather unexpectedly, and while the gentleman fell back, the lady extended her hand.

"Have you stayed away so long that you have forgotten your friends, Major Clare?" she said with a smile which was bright but rather tremulous, like a gleam of sunshine on rippling water. "You have not even said good-evening to me, and yet you have an air as if you had said good-night to the rest of the company."

"So I have," answered Victor, smiling in turn, partly from the pleasure of meeting her, partly from the sheer magnetism of her glance, "but it is no fault of mine that I have not been able to speak to you: I have found no opportunity."

"But I thought you always said that; people made opportunities when they desired to do so?"

"Then the time has come for me to retract my assertion. As a general rule, a man cannot make opportunities: he can only take advantage of them when they come, as I hope to take advantage of the present," he added smiling.

"But I thought you were going home?"

"I was going home a minute ago, but so long as you will let me talk to you I shall stay."

"It is a very small favor to grant," said Eleanor, blushing a little. "But why were you leaving so early?"

"Partly because I had no hope of seeing you; partly because I am not a 'young duke' to pencil a line to my steward and know that a princely collation will be served at noon to-morrow for half a hundred, or even for a dozen or two people."

"What do you mean?" she asked, for though she caught the allusion to Disraeli's rose-colored romance, the application puzzled her.

"I see you have not heard of our gypsy plan," he answered, and at once proceeded to detail it.

She was not so much delighted as he expected, but a pretty, lucid gleam came into her eyes at the mention of Claremont.

"I shall be glad to see your home," she said quietly. "I have heard so much of its beauty and its antiquity."

"It is pretty, and it is old," said he, "but it will not be mine much longer. I am negotiating its sale now."

She started: "What! you were in earnest, then? You are really going to Egypt?"

"Yes, I am going to Egypt. Why should I stay? What has life to offer me here save vegetation? There, at least, I can find action."

She looked at him with a strange, wistful expression which struck and startled him. He felt as if a prisoned soul suddenly sprang up and gazed at him out of the clear blue depths of her eyes. "Oh what a good thing it is to be a man!" she said. "How free you are! how able to do what you please and go where you please—to seek action and to find it! Oh, Major Clare, you ought to thank God night and day that He did not make you a woman!"

"I am glad, certainly, that I am a man," said Victor honestly. "But you are the last woman in the world from whom I should have expected to hear such rebellious sentiments."

"I am not rebellious," said Eleanor more quietly. "What is the good of it? All the rebellion in the world could not make me a man; and I have no fancy to be an unsexed woman. But nobody was ever more weary of conventional routine, nobody ever longed more for freedom and action than I do."

It was on the end of Victor's tongue to say, "Then come with me to Egypt," but he caught himself in time. Was he mad to imagine that "the beautiful Miss Milbourne"—a woman at whose feet the most desirable matches of "society" had been laid—would end her brilliant career by marrying a soldier of fortune, and expatriating herself from her country and her kindred? He gave a grim sort of smile which Eleanor did not quite understand, as he said: "Where is your lotos? It ought to make you more content with the things that be."

"I have it," Eleanor said with child-like simplicity. "Mr. Brent remembered and brought it to me. I have not forgotten my promise to share it with you."

"Take it to the mountain to-morrow night, then," said he quickly. "Let us eat it together there. I should like to link you even with my farewell to the past."

And, since an interruption came just then, they parted with this understanding.

The next day Major Clare was standing on the terrace of Claremont—a stately, solidly-built old house, bearing itself with an air of conscious pride and disdain of modern frippery, despite certain significant signs of decay—when his guests arrived in formidable procession. There was something of the "old school" in his manner of welcoming them—a grace and courtesy which struck more than one of them as at once very perfect and very charming.

"The man suits the house, does he not?" said Mrs. Brantley to Mrs. Lancaster. "It is like a vintage of rare old wine in an old bottle. We fancy that it has an aroma which it would lose in a new cut-glass decanter."

"I always thought Major Clare had delightful manners," said Mrs. Lancaster, who could not trust herself to say anything more. She felt with a pang how much she would have liked to bring wealth and prosperity and elegant hospitality back again to the old house, if its owner had not been so madly blind to his own interest, so absurdly in love with Eleanor Milbourne's statue-like face, so insanely intent upon periling life and limb in the service of the viceroy of Egypt. The pretty widow gave a sigh as she arranged her hair before the quaint, old-fashioned mirror in the chamber to which the ladies had been conducted. If he had only been reasonable, how different things might be! She walked to a window which overlooked the garden with its formal walks and terraces, its borders of box and summer-houses of cedar. "He will change his mind before the month is out," she thought. "A man cannot surrender all the associations of his past and the home of his fathers without a struggle."

This consideration lost some of its consoling force, however, when, a few minutes later, two people, walking slowly and evidently talking earnestly, passed down the vista of one of the garden alleys, and were lost to sight behind a tall, clipped hedge. Even at that distance there was no mistaking the figure and bearing of Clare; neither was there another woman who walked with that free, stately grace in a riding-habit which Eleanor Milbourne possessed. "If she is engaged to Marston Brent, he might certainly put an end to such open flirtation as this," Mrs. Lancaster said between her teeth. "If he were not blind or mad, he might see that she is so much in love with Victor that she would go with him to Egypt to-morrow if he asked her to do so."

An old and sensible proverb with which we are all acquainted says that it is never well to judge others by ourselves; and if Mrs. Lancaster had possessed the invisible cap of the prince in the fairy-tale, and had followed the pair who had just passed out of sight, she would have received an immediate proof of the truth of this aphorism. They had paused in a square near the heart of the garden—a green, shaded spot, in the centre of which an empty basin bore witness to a departed fountain, though no pleasant murmur of water had broken the stillness for many a long day. Round the margin of this still ran a seat on which Eleanor sat down. Victor remained standing before her. A lime tree near by cast a soft, flickering shadow over them, and the tall hedges of evergreen which enclosed the square made a sombre but effective background.

"You see that ruin and decay are all that I have to offer you here," Victor was saying with a cadence of bitterness in his voice. "But if you had courage enough to end the life which you despise, to cut loose from all the ties which bind you in America, and go with me to Egypt, there I might have a future and a career for you to share—there at least, you would find freedom and action and life."

A flush came to Eleanor's cheek, and a light gleamed suddenly in her eyes, as if the very wildness of this proposal lent it fascination; but she shook her head, smiling a little sadly. "You are of my world," she said: "you ought to know better than that. I am not so brave as you think. I must do what is expected of me, and I am expected to marry Marston Brent."

"Forget the world and come with me."

"That is impossible. If I had only myself to care for, I would; but there are others of whom I must think." She was silent for a moment, then looked up at him piteously. "They have sacrificed so much for me at home," she said, "and they are so proud of me. They hope, desire, count on this marriage: I cannot disappoint them. Mr. Brent himself has been most kind and patient, and he does not expect very much. I am a coward, perhaps, but what can I do?"

Again he said, "You can come with me."

Again she answered, "It is impossible. Do you not see that it is impossible? Starting forth on a new career, it would be insane for you to burden yourself with a wife. As for me, I am no more fit to marry a poor man than to be a housemaid. Victor, it is hopeless. For Heaven's sake, let us talk of it no longer! The only thing we can do is to forget that we have ever talked of it at all."

"Will that be easy for you? I confess that nothing on earth could be harder for me."

"No, it will not be easy, but I shall try with all my strength to do it. God only knows," putting her hand suddenly to her face, "how I shall live if I am not able to do it." Then passionately, "Why did you speak? Why did you make the misery greater by dragging it to the light, so that we could face it, talk of it, discuss it? Oh why did you do it?"

"Because I wanted to see if you were not made of braver stuff than other women," said he almost sternly. "In my maddest hours I never dreamed of speaking, until—what you said last night. Thinking of that after I came home, I resolved to give you one opportunity to break through the artificial trammels of your life, and find the freedom you professed to desire. It was better to do this, I thought, than to be tormented all my life by a regret, a doubt, lest I had lost happiness where one bold stroke might have gained it."

"And now that you have found that I am not brave, that I am like all the other conventional women of my class, are you not sorry that you have inflicted useless pain upon yourself?"

"Of myself I do not think at all, and even when I think of you I cannot regret having spoken. Let the misery be what it will, it is something to have faced it together—it is everything to know that you love me, though you refuse to share my life."

"You must not say that," said she, starting and shrinking as if from a blow. "How can I venture to acknowledge that I love you when I am going to marry Marston Brent?"

"Are you going to marry him?"

"Have I not told you so?"

He turned from her and took one short, quick turn across the square. Like every man in his position, he felt outraged and indignant, without pausing to consider how infinitely more inexorable the laws of society are with regard to women than to men. He could put Mrs. Lancaster's fortune aside and go his way—to Egypt or to the dogs—without anybody crying out against his criminal folly, his criminal disregard of the duties and traditions of his class. But if Eleanor Milbourne put Marston Brent's princely fortune aside and disappointed all her friends, what remained to her but the bitter condemnation of those friends in particular and of society in general?

When he came back she rose to meet him, making a picture worth remembering as she stood in her graceful youth and picturesque habit by the broken fountain, with the sombre cedar hedge behind and the intense azure of the summer sky above.

"Let us go," she said. "By prolonging this we only give ourselves useless pain. All is said that can be said. Nothing remains now but to forget; and that can best be done in silence. Victor, let us go."

There was a tone of pathos, a tone as if she was not quite sure of herself, in those last words, which made Clare refrain from answering her. He turned silently, and they entered a green alley which led to the foot of the terrace surrounding the house. As they walked along, Marston Brent's figure appeared at the end of the vista, advancing toward them, and it was this apparition which first made Clare speak: "If you will not think me fanciful—I am sure you will not think me presumptuous—promise me that before you give that man his answer you will share the lotos with me of which you have spoken. I may be superstitious, but I feel as if we shall gain new strength with which to face the future after we have together renounced the past."

She shook her head. "I am not superstitious enough to think that it will enable us to forget one pang," she said. "But if you desire it, I promise."

When the afternoon shadows were lengthening the party from The Willows set forth again, and reached the foot of the mountain a little before sunset, making the ascent in time to see the day-god's last radiance streaming over the fair, broad expanse of country beneath them. There was a small cabin on the summit which was to be devoted to the ladies, and round the camp-fire which was soon sparkling brightly the gentlemen proposed to spend the night on the blankets with which they were all plentifully provided. Meanwhile, the party, dividing into groups and pairs, were soon scattered here and there, perched on the highest points of rock, enjoying the cool, fresh air which came as a message of love from the glowing west, and chattering like a chorus of magpies.

When the evening collation was over—a gypsy-like repast for which every one seemed to have an excellent appetite—Mr. Brent asked Eleanor if she would not accompany him to the eastern side of the mountain to see the moon rise. While she hesitated, uncertain what to say, Clare's voice spoke quietly at her side. "Miss Milbourne has an engagement with me," he said. "I fear you must defer the pleasure of admiring the moon in her society for a little while, Mr. Brent." Then to Eleanor, "Shall we go now?"

She assented, and they walked away. Mr. Brent, thus left behind, naturally felt aggrieved, and turned to Mrs. Brantley with some slight irritation stirring his usually courteous repose.

"It strikes me that Major Clare's manners decidedly lack polish," he said with an air of grave reprehension. "Is it true, as I am told, that he is going to sell that fine old place where we spent the day, and emigrate to Egypt?"

"He is quite ready for a lunatic asylum," said Mrs. Lancaster, who was standing near. "But, whatever his folly may be, I certainly do not agree with you, Mr. Brent, in thinking that his manners need any improvement."

Meanwhile, Eleanor was saying, "You should not have spoken so curtly to Mr. Brent."

"If I can avoid it, I shall never speak to him again," Clare answered. "Don't let us talk of him. I did not bring you away to discuss anybody we have left behind, or anything of which we have talked before. We are to be like immortals—to forget the past and live only in the present."

"Where are we going?" she asked.

"Round to a point from whence we can overlook Claremont."

She said nothing more, and he led her to the eastern side of the mountain, where, near the verge of an almost precipitous descent, they sat down together under the shadow of a great gray rock. From this point the view was more extensive than any they had commanded before. The rolling country, with the sunset glory fading from it, lay like a panorama at their feet—shadowy woods melting into blue distance, streams glancing here and there into sight, fields rich with cultivation bounded by fences that looked like a spider's thread. To the left Claremont, seated above its terraces, made an imposing landmark. Behind it the moon was rising majestically in a cloudless sky. After they had been silent for some time, Clare turned and looked at his companion. "How beautiful you are!" he said abruptly. "I wish I had a picture of you as you sit there now. It would be worth everything else in the world to me. But perhaps, after all, the best pictures are those which are taken on the heart."

"You have forgotten," said Eleanor, trying to smile, "that we are going to eat the lotos in order to efface all pictures."

"Nay," said he. "I thought it was to enable us to forget everything but the present, and this is the present."

"But it will be the past in a little while," said she, "and we must forget it, like all the rest. Victor, we must forget! They say that all things are possible to resolution: let us resolve to do that."

For some time longer they sat silent. Then Clare said, with something like a groan, "Would to God I could die here and now, or else that there was some spell by which one could make memory a blank!"

"Let us try the lotos," said Eleanor. "See, I brought it as you told me."

From her pocket she drew a paper which, being opened, proved to contain the dried petals of a flower, evidently an aquatic plant. Yellow and lifeless as it was, Eleanor looked at it with wistful reverence. "It came from Egypt," she said: then she added, "where you are going."

"We will see if there is any magic in it," said Clare.

So, together they took the dried petals and began to eat them, smiling a little sadly at each other as they did so.

"Herodotus says that when the Nile is full, 'and all the grounds round it are a perfect sea, there grows a vast quantity of lilies which the Egyptians call lotos, in the water,'" said Clare. "He adds that this flower, especially the root of it, is very sweet. If this is the same, it has certainly changed its flavor since that time."

"It is not disagreeable," said Eleanor. "But I fear we shall not find the effect for which we have hoped. It is of the lotos fruit that Homer and Tennyson have written."

"And the lotos flower of mythology is an East Indian, not an Egyptian, aquatic; but since we desire to link our fancy with the flower of the Nile, we will ignore the poets and the Brahmins. After all, we only desire it as a symbol of the renunciation of the past on which we have agreed. Eleanor, what if we should indeed resolve to leave the past behind us from this hour, and face our future together?"

He looked at her imploringly and passionately, but instead of replying she put her hand to her head. "How strangely dizzy I am!" she said. "Can it—do you think it can be the lotos?"

"Dizzy!" he repeated. "Then I must take you from the edge of this precipice. Perhaps it is that which affects you. It could not have been the lotos, or I should feel it too. Come, let me lead you round the rock."

But when he attempted to rise he found that to him, too, a sudden strange dizziness came. A constriction seemed gathering about his heart, a mist seemed rising before his eyes. Before he had half risen he sank back against the rock.

"Do you feel it too?" she asked quickly.

"Yes," he said slowly, putting his hand also to his head. "What can it mean? Could there have been anything wrong in that plant? The lotos itself is harmless, either flower or fruit. Eleanor, my darling!" he cried with sudden alarm. "Good Heavens! what is the matter? How pale you look!"

"I—I do not think it could have been the lotos. It must have been some poisonous plant," said she faintly. "This giddiness and numbness increase." Then she held out her hands tremulously. "Hold me," she said. "The earth seems slipping away from me. Oh, Victor, what if it should be fatal?"

"Do not imagine such a thing," he said. "It is impossible! The plant has probably some narcotic property which affects you temporarily. Lean on me until it is over. My God! how mad I was to have suffered you to eat it!"

"Do not blame yourself," she said, clinging to him, her fair head drooping heavily on his breast. "It was I who spoke of it—who sent for it—"

She stopped, gasping a little, and pressing her hand to her heart, where an iron clutch seemed arresting the circulation. A glance at her face filled Clare with a terror which he had not felt before. Partly this, partly his own sensations, told him that the poison of the plant which they had shared between them was fatal—one of the swift and terrible agents of death which abound in the East—and a sense too horrible to be dwelt upon came to him, warning him that aid, to avail at all, must be summoned quickly.

But how? The summit of the mountain was large, the rest of the party were far from them. He had purposely led his companion to this remote spot, where, even if he had been able to raise his voice, there was none to hear. As for leaving her, he doubted his own ability to walk ten steps. He felt sure that if he succeeded in gaining his feet he should reel and fall like a drunken man.

Still, the attempt must be made, and that instantly. Every second lessened the hope of its success—with every pulse-beat he felt the awful, reeling numbness increase. How much longer he could retain his consciousness he could not tell. He saw plainly that Eleanor was losing hers.

"My darling," he said, striving vainly to unclasp the arms that clung to him, "I must go—I must call assistance: this may be more serious than I thought. Try to rouse yourself, Eleanor: I must go!"

Alas! it was easy to say—it was awfully impossible to do. Even when Eleanor relaxed her already half-unconscious embrace, and he strove to rise, he found that not even desperation could give the requisite power. He literally could not gain his feet. Every effort failed: he sank back hopelessly.

Then he tried to raise his voice in a cry for help, but it refused to obey his bidding. He was not able to speak above a broken whisper. Finding this to be the case, he turned in an agony of despair to the girl beside him—the girl whom, with a last effort, he drew to his breast.

"Eleanor," he said, "it is hopeless. If this is poison we must die! Oh, my darling, can you forgive me? O my God, send us help! Eleanor, can you hear me? Eleanor, will you not speak to me?"

For a minute all was silence. Then the fair head raised itself, and the lids slowly and heavily lifted from the blue, flower-like eyes. The moon, which had now risen high in the cloudless July heaven, shone full on her face as she said, "Kiss me."

For the first time their lips met: when they parted both were cold.

* * * * *

Still clinging together, they were found. At their feet lay a fragment of the deadly-poisonous Egyptian river-plant which Marston Brent had ignorantly plucked for a lotos.

CHRISTIAN REID.



ECHO.

FROM THE RUSSIAN OF PUSCHKTN.

Roars there ever a beast in his forest den, Hear we thunder in heaven, a horn among men, On the hill sings a maiden now and then,— Sound what may, Answer through space thou mak'st again With small delay. Aware of the thunder's rattling roll, Of the winds and the waves when without control, Of the cries where the village shepherds stroll, Reply thou giv'st; Yet thou thyself, without one answering soul, A poet liv'st.

A.J.



OUR HOME IN THE TYROL.

CHAPTER IX.

Sometimes it was our simple hosts who led the conversation, which then, especially as they became at ease with us, always drifted more or less into the supernatural. Nor was this surprising, as the tales, legends, old manners and customs amongst the Tyrolese are thoroughly interwoven with threads of heathen mythology and with the occult belief of the Middle Ages.



Franz had a wonderful credence in lucky and unlucky days. Tuesday and Thursday were witches' days, and Wednesday was also evil, seeing Judas hanged himself on a Wednesday; therefore never drive cattle to the Olm on that day. Moreover, he believed that when two persons sneezed together a soul was loosed from purgatory. As for witches and ghosts, he knew enough about them too. Did not the witches still dance every night at eight o'clock on their meeting-place by Bad Scharst? His brother Joergel could have told us about that if he would. The paechter Josef had likewise experiences which he might relate were he not so shy. "Josef was returning through the Reinwald one Thursday night, and had just crossed over the Giessbach when he met a black figure, whom he greeted in God's name; but the figure moved on, making no answer as a Christian would have done. He had not gone much farther up the wood when he met a second black form. Crossing himself, Josef spoke out boldly a 'God greet you!' but again silence. The figure had vanished. Josef crossed himself and prayed. Nevertheless, he met a third, and, waxing bold, not only greeted him, but turning round looked fixedly at the black figure to see whether it were sorcerer, gypsy, ghost or witch. And there, behold! it stood, grown as tall as a tree, grinning at Josef until he thought it best to escape. Next day the black cow went dry: otherwise you might say that Josef's hobgoblins were fir trees."

Whilst Jakob laughed at Josef's phantoms, he could not help telling us in his turn a tale which he considered much more noteworthy: "There was no denying that one winter's night a huntsman, losing himself in the deep snow, took refuge in a forsaken senner-hut. Content to suffer hunger if only thus sheltered for the night, he was shortly surprised by the entrance of a black man, who not only welcomed him to the hut, but proposed cooking him some supper; an offer most thankfully accepted. Upon this, the black man lighted a fire, suddenly produced a frying-pan, which had been invisible before, and began cooking strauben and cream pancakes from equally hidden stores. When supper was ready the huntsman begged the good-natured black cook to sit down and eat with him; and a very hearty meal he seemed to make, although, to the surprise of the huntsman, the food turned as black as a cinder before it entered his mouth. Both men lay down to rest; and after a comfortable sleep the hunter, rising up to go, thanked the black man for his kind hospitality, adding, 'May God reward you!' 'Oh,' replied the other, uttering a great sigh of relief, 'may God in His mercy equally reward you for those words! When I walked on the earth I laughed at religion: I was therefore sent back in the spirit to toil until some mortal should thank me in God's name for what I had done for him. This you have done, and now I am free;' and so saying he vanished."

"Yes," said Moidel, "these tales are as true as the gospel. You know Nanni, the maid who sings so sweetly? Her father some years since went on a pilgrimage with two other peasants to Maria Zell. Arriving late one night at a solitary farm-house, they rapped at the door, requesting a lodging. The bauer, however, excused himself: it was from no evil intention, he said, but he could not take strangers in. The three wanderers pleaded how ill would be their condition if left in the fields all night. Still the bauer made no other reply, until, on their pressing him, he finally declared, half in anger, that they must themselves be responsible for their night's rest. He wished to treat them well, but could offer them no better bed than the top of the oven in the stube. This offer they willingly accepted, but hardly had they lain down when a peasant-woman entered with a pail of water and brushes. In spite of their entreaties, she scrubbed and scrubbed away all night, and hardly had she finished when, the work not pleasing her, she began scrubbing the floor and woodwork over again. Thus the cleaning lasted the livelong night, until in the early morning the maid-servant entered and the woman disappeared; the floor and walls being, to their astonishment, as dry and dusty as the evening before. Whereupon they spoke to the bauer of their troublesome visitor. 'Do not accuse me,' he replied 'of inhospitality: this is a strange matter, from which I would fain have kept you. Intolerable as it has been to you, it is still worse for me, knowing that the woman who thus scrubs, and with so much din, is my poor dead wife. Her brain, when she was alive, was quite turned about cleaning. She could not even go to church with me and the neighbors, but must stay at home and clean. So, being a bad manager, and not washing her soul white, she seems unfit for heaven, and must needs come here every night to continue her work. Even masses don't seem to help her.'"

Such tales were either related by the hut-fire on airy mountain or in the fir woods. Moidel might have told us ghost-stories in the barn at night, but there, in the solitary darkness, they appeared to her too horribly real, especially with sleepy auditors, who might any moment drop into unconsciousness, leaving her in a dismal fright over her own tale.

One afternoon, accompanied by this faithful companion, we determined to attack the summit of the mountain, which in a mantle of fir wood rose immediately behind the huts. We were anxious to see what lay on the other side, but after a hard though exhilarating climb we learned that the mountain was but a huge overhanging shoulder, the rocky head of the giant rising up in the midst of wide sweeping moors some six miles distant. We changed, therefore, the object of our excursion, determining to visit the highest Olm of the district, Ober Kofel. Turning to the left, we pursued the moorland plateau until in half an hour we had reached a solitary white cabin. The door was firmly closed, but a pile of fire-wood and a rake, evidently flung recently down, were sufficient signs of habitation. A more lonely scene could not well be conceived. No trees nor flowers, only some yellow thistles growing by the side of a murmuring brook, which had persistently gone rushing on until it had worn the pebbles in its bed flat and thin. Tawny, dun-colored mountains rose behind, but before the hut the traet or open space, covered with the greenest turf, extended to a platform of rocks, where the glossy shrubs of the mountain rhododendron grew, presenting a scene well worth the climb. The view outward embraced the deep wooded gorge of the Giessbach, revealing far beyond the black, sinuous lines of distant mountains, cutting across the evening horizon. Black-brown crags some eight thousand feet high, peaked with snow, rose to the right; but the great snow spectacle was to the left. There the proud crests of the Hoch Gall, Wild Gall and Schnebige Nock rose out of a vast white glittering amphitheatre, a peculiar, bare, conical rock standing like an Alpine sphinx strangely forth from this desert of snow.

We sat on our verdant patch enjoying the wild, grand scenery, the wind playing around us in concert with a little calf which had just been promoted to a bell. At length the figure of a tall young man flitted in front of a distant cross, and advancing toward us proved to be the solitary senner of Ober Kofel. As he was the lord of the domain, and moreover acquainted with Moidel, it was not many minutes ere he sat on the grass before us. After giving us a welcome, he began talking to Moidel about the military exercises which were to begin again this week.

"The Ausserkofers," he said, "went down for the drilling immediately after their ascent of the Wild Gall: I am glad I was not drawn."

Then Moidel communicated to him that Jakob must leave on the morrow for drill, and that Tilemaker Martin, Carpenter Barthel's son, would arrive in the morning to take his place as herdsman.

The party now dropped into a dignified silence, which might have lasted as long as we had remained had it not appeared pleasanter to keep the senner intent on a story, rather than on each feature of our several faces.

Speaking proper German, also proving to be understood by him, one of the group began: "Of course you have heard of the clever Tyrolese peasant, still living, Hans Jakob Fetz?"

Neither he nor Moidel had ever heard of him, and as they both pricked up their ears, they learned the following: Fetz possesses a little farm called the Pines. It has, however, the disadvantage of lying on both sides of a wild rushing torrent, the Ache, a river given to inundations in the spring, and over which there is no bridge in his neighborhood. Thus, though Hans Jakob could sit at his door, and almost count the ears of corn in his fields across the river, he must make a circuit of five miles to reach them. Such an immense loss of time and labor troubled him no little, and, as he had no desire to sell his property, he determined by hook or by crook to remedy the evil. Day and night he turned the perplexing problem over in his mind. He might, to be sure, swim across, but then there were his tools to be carried. At last it flashed upon him: Why not make an aerial car? He bought for this purpose some very thick iron wire, stretched it in two parallel lines across the river, fastening the four ends very firmly; constructed a bench on iron rollers, which, sustained by the wire, ran across the river in a trice, and his aerial car was a reality. Here, indeed, was a triumph. It worked admirably, and the whole neighborhood became excited and astonished about the air-railway, as they called it. The news spreading, it brought finally some gentlemen from the town of Dornbirn, who were wild to have a ride across the river. Hans Jakob refused it: he doubted the strength being sufficient for more than one passenger; but they persisting in their urgent demand, he at last reluctantly consented. They would not, or else they could not, go without him. So, the party being seated on the bench, he unfastened the hook, when they should have been instantly whirled across. But, alas! his fears proved true: the wire gave way, and down they all went, plump into the wild rushing river. A great fright and wetting—that was all, for the time being, until the gentlemen, although they had promised not to say a word on the subject, having whispered it to this friend and that, leaving no part uncolored, the town of Dornbirn grew scandalized at a mad peasant's audacity. The authorities took it in hand, and a solemn gendarme visited Hans Jakob with strict orders from government to desist from such perilous, hairbreadth inventions for the future. Poor Hans! he now regarded himself not only as the laughing-stock of the whole country, but as a ruined man. He had spent all his savings on his first venture; but neither official reprimand nor loss of his money could keep his busy, active brain from puzzling out an improved plan, which, having perfected it in his mind, he boldly carried out. Instead of two simple iron wires, he employed two double coils, with a single wire in the centre and six feet higher. He stretched across two other strong parallel wires. He then contrived a little car with two seats and a cover against sun and rain. To the benches and the awning he fastened rollers, so that the car was propelled across both above and below. The weight which it would bear he proved to be fifteen hundredweight, and unfastened from the iron hooks which kept it to the bank, the car ran across in a few seconds with an easy, agreeable motion. Practice and a close investigation proved it now a perfect success. All the censures and ridicule were forgotten, and it proves at the present time both convenient and amusing to the gentlemen, ladies and children of the neighborhood. Hans Jakob willingly conveys them across the river in his flying car. He will, however, receive no fixed payment. He constructed it simply for his own use: were he to make a trade of it, he must either take out a patent, or else make some concessions to government, neither of which he has any inclination to do.

The senner and Moidel listened in astonishment. They had understood every word. Although they had never heard of Hans Jakob before, there was a full account of him in the Brixen calendar, an almanac which the senner owned to having had by him for the last eight months—another noticeable instance how tales and good advice in print are lost upon a people who, hitherto quietly slumbering, find for their hearts and minds enough to do in carrying on their slow agriculture and pattering their prayers. I believe that popular lecturers conversant with the dialect would be of infinite service in the rural districts of the Tyrol.

The senner, after this entertainment, offered us the hospitality of his hut. A lordly bowl of intensely rich cream was placed before us in the sleeping-room, with the sole option of lapping like the men of Gideon, seeing we were not sufficiently naturalized for each to carry a horn spoon in her pocket, had not a little tin drinking mug been fortunately remembered.

The next day the young tilemaker Martin, carrying his bundle, arrived at about nine. He had left the Hof at three that morning, making the whole journey of twenty-four miles on foot without a stop. Franz therefore seized hold of the frying-pan, and we dined an hour earlier than the usual time of ten. After coffee, Jakob had to initiate his successor into the various advantages of the several Alpine pastures, to point out the cattle and goat paths, and to introduce Martin to Kohli, Kraunsi, Blasi, Zottel, Nageli and all the other cows, as well as to Tiger, Schweiz and their fellow-oxen. We set out to accompany them, but the cattle were too far away on distant heights for us to continue long in the scramble. We therefore sat on a breezy mountain platform watching the athletic young men grow ever smaller, more indistinct, whilst Jakob's voice was borne to us on the rarefied air as he called lovingly, "Krudeli, Krudeli" to the calves, and "Koess, Koess" to the cows.

"It is a miracle," said Moidel, "how Martin, who was so weak and consumed away by his accident, should thus have recovered."

"What accident?" asked we.

"Why, does not the Herrschaft know how last November, on his very name-day, Martin was nearly killed? Young Niederberg—he who wears the finest carnations on his hat, but who then, it being cold weather, wore three cock's feathers gained in wrestling-matches—strutted down the Edelsheim street, arm in arm with his great friend, the fair-haired Hansel of Heinwiese, a rude young churl, praising each other for their strength of limb and good looks. Martin at the time was leaning against his father's door. 'The devil!' said Niederberg: 'why do you stay at your father's, when there is better wine and company at the Blauen Bock?' Martin, however, replied that he was a hard-working man, who could only spare time to see his old father and sick sister on a festival. 'No,' said Heinwiese in anger, 'thou art nothing but a miserable milk-sop, never at a wrestling-match, never at a dance.' 'But,' put in Niederberg, 'we'll teach thee to dance and sing;' and so saying, he suddenly plunged the blade of his big pocket-knife below Martin's ribs.

"Why he had become their prey none could tell, unless they were lost in drink. Great was the clamor in the usually quiet village. A doctor was sent for, who at first declared Martin's wound to be mortal. Then his young wife and little children were fetched with many tears from the tileyard, and the priest came with the Holy Death Sacrament. But the prayers and viaticum saved Martin. Still, for many months he had a frightful illness, and even in March he was so weak you could have knocked him down with a feather. Niederberg was immediately taken into custody, and was sentenced to sit in Bruneck Castle till St. John the Baptist's Day, fully six months, to pay the doctor's bill, and two hundred gulden to Martin; but the latter sum, being an evil-minded youth, though rich, he has never paid. He will leave that to Heinwiese, he says, who put him up to the deed: besides, why pay a man who had recovered? He would have stood the funeral and settled with the widow. However, father talks of dealing with Niederberg, for he must not thus despoil patient Martin."

Here, indeed, was a stabbing worthy of hot Italy, rather than cooler, quieter Tyrol. It proved, too, that the serpent and old Adam still moved in that garden of Eden, Edelsheim.

Jakob and the hero of the tragedy now returned, bright and brisk, bearing armfuls of edelweiss, long sprays of stag-horn's moss, and showing us with genuine pleasure roots of the edelraute, which they had gathered on the high ledges for us. This is a little insignificant plant, but called by the Tyrolese the noble rue, and prized by them far more than the edelweiss; perhaps one reason being that when dried it is said to emit a delicious scent, for which reason the housewives place it amongst linen. Jakob looked like a mountain dryad, his broad-brimmed beaver being completely covered with purple Michaelmas daisies, glowing amongst sheaves of silvery edelweiss, falling round in a soft gray woolen fringe. Aided by Jakob and Martin, we had the gratification of gathering edelweiss ourselves, always a notable feat. Martin really had most miraculously recovered. After those twenty-four miles of hard walking, followed by a climb of several thousand feet, we left him felling a pine tree as we bade Jakob adieu, for he was to leave very early in the morning.

A comical scene ensued after our return to the barn. Visitors of course we had none: Martin's arrival had been an immense event. Thus, as we sat in the barn partaking of hot wine and cake, great masses of shadow all around, with light breaking in only from the lantern, forming altogether a perfect Rembrandt effect, we heard a cheerful voice wishing us "Good-night and sweet repose" through the door. Immediately, believing it to be the paechter's moidel, a young lady usually engaged in cutting hay, one of the party rashly invited the voice to enter—an invitation instantly accepted in the most perfect good faith by either a mad woman or a tramp in a big, flapping straw hat, who seated herself in the golden light of the lantern, adding perhaps to the breadth and freedom of this Rembrandt picture, but certainly not to its ease. Ravenously consuming some cake, she attacked us with a continuous battery of God bless yous! Moidel, however, was up to the occasion, and it was not long ere she managed to get the unacceptable visitor outside the door, we begging her to bolt and bar it well, for after this call we were afraid of more lurking intruders. Moidel, however, bade us have no fears. The woman was neither cracked nor a Welscher: she was only a very poor Bachernthalerin, whose hut was generally under water. It was accessible now, however, and the poor soul had been round begging milk at the senner-huts.



CHAPTER X.

Life in the mountains was not half so ideal as we once foolishly might have imagined. Still, the visit thither had surpassed our expectations, and it was with no little regret that we bade farewell to the familiar barn the following morning. We settled a bill with the paechter at parting, including the dinner given to the knowing Ignaz. It amounted to the sum of one gulden. Who would not stay up at an Olm?

Again we gave the day to the ten-mile walk, now a steep but pleasant descent, choosing the village of Rein as our first halting-place. It was still early, a lovely autumn morning, the mountains rising in all their impressive majesty, but for a time all our powers of admiration and enjoyment were suddenly marred by the sight of meek sheep led to the shambles at the very window.

We would have hurried on, if we could, without stopping, but we had rashly promised to write our names in the important visitors' book, besides paying a small bill for wine. The landlord could not at all perceive why, as meat had to be eaten, any one could object to a preliminary exhibition, especially when the butcher could only make his rounds at stated times, and it was so convenient by the kitchen door. Indeed, so deadened in delicate perceptions were these people that the landlord observing a rare plant in one of our hands, he actually called the butcher in to tell us its name. The man, having at that moment ended his first stroke of business, came in red-handed, and proved a botanist. It was a Woodsia hyperborea—that was the Latin name—and was rare in those parts, he said; but the Herrschaft should come earlier for flowers. July was the month. Then there was geum, and pale blue-fringed campanulas, and rich lilac asters, yellow violets, the white scented wax-flower, arnica and yellow aconite, both excellent medicines; there were thunder-flowers, and blood-drops, and grass of Parnassus, and hundreds more, all cut down by the scythes. There were four thousand plants and upward in the Tyrol; only, alas! like the gentians, many species were being perfectly exterminated.

His energy interested us, and his hands were under the table. Frau Anna expressed great disappointment at the various beautiful gentians, common in Switzerland, being rare in the Tyrol.

"Ladies," replied the botanist with emphasis, "you know not the reason? Why, there is hardly a species of gentian which is not torn up by the roots for the making of schnapps. Schnapps is good when rheumatism works in the bones: there is then no better lotion; and a thimbleful of cheerfulness in the morning, and another of sleep at night, are what I wish for our wirth, myself and every peasant daily; but why need they pull up all the gentians, which were bits of heaven scattered over the mountain-sides? I know that their roots are better for schnapps distilling than those of other plants, or even than bilberries or cranberries; but oh for a little moderation, cutting the roots gently! for whilst a bit is left in the ground the plant springs up again. 'Poor as a root-grubber' is the proverb. I'm glad it is. For if they were not so wanton, they would not be so poor. They mostly come from the Zillerthal. It's a special trade. The men climb the mountains as soon as the snow melts. They build themselves rude huts, and spend the summer searching for and digging up roots. Now, however, as they have cut their own throats, so to speak, they must climb often to high mountain-ledges, letting themselves down by ropes, to gather fine roots, which they still sometimes find of the thickness of my wrist. In the late autumn they collect their bundles of dried gentian roots, which they carry to the distilling vats, where the Enzian, so dear to the Tyroler, is made."



And the butcher, who had grown quite pathetic over the gentians, rose to return to his occupation. It was curious to observe the honorable position which he held with landlord, landlady and Moidel. What a surgeon or soldier would be in a higher class, that the butcher was to them. In this case, too, we joined in respect—a feeling we might entertain for many more of his trade, perhaps, had we the opportunity of judging. But we must onward.

Ere long a young woman wearing a pointed black felt hat, ornamented with yellow everlastings, overtook us and joined company with Moidel, giving us, however, equally the benefit of her conversation, whilst she insisted upon carrying a bag. She lived in Rein, she told us, and had now to consult the doctor in Taufers a second time about perpetual stitching pains in her throat. The doctor said it was quinsy, and arose from cold. Perhaps, she said, if she could bring herself to smoke a meerschaum, like other women in Rein, she might keep the mischief out; but it struck her as a disgrace to a female, and it made a great hole in the pocket. Those who were born in such a village as Rein were in an evil plight. The cottages were badly built, the kitchens reeked with smoke, and were so bitterly cold in winter, though the fowls had to roost there, that water froze in them. In fact, no one could stay in the kitchen in winter. Then all the family must crowd into the stube, living and sleeping there. When Nanni Muckhaus had the typhus she and her children and grandchildren must lie down together; and then all the neighbors had to visit her, unless they chose to pass as brutes; and so that was how the typhus spread. Fortunately, her husband and she were alone: they had no burdens. Still, life was hard—a vale of tears or a vale of snow. If the gentry could see the Reinthal in the winter, choked up with avalanches, they would say so. Her man had, however, enough to keep them. He had a license for the shooting of gemsen and other game, which he might use from holy Jakobi's Day to Candlemas. He had this year killed only five gemsen so far. The Post at Taufers was greedy for gemsen now, and bought up every ounce of the flesh at nineteen kreuzers the pound—bought snow-hens, too, at forty kreuzers each, and would never let her husband's gun be idle. When Candlemas came, and he could no longer shoot, then he worked in their fields; for we might not think it, but he, being a thrifty soul, had saved fifty gulden and bought some land. But oh the labors, the toils to which a Reinthaler was subjected! If his land lay on the mountain-side, he and his woman must slave and toil like beasts of burden, for what would be the help of horse or cow for riding, driving or ploughing on such steep, upright land? "The holy watch-angels help us!" she said. "Look up there and you will see, ladies, the truth of what I tell you."

Pointing with her finger, she drew our attention to the small figure of a man working upon a dizzy height some three thousand feet above us, his legs, like a pair of compasses, comically revealing a triangle of blue sky between them, whilst we with difficulty made out the figures of two women helping him.

"That's Seppl Mahlgruben and his daughters cutting down their green oats, too tardy to ripen. Some years since Moidel, the eldest girl, working on that precise point, knelt one inch too far over the precipice and was hurled into eternity, where a better fortune, I pray God, awaited her than the cruel trials of Reinthal."

Moidel told us afterward that she thought our informant took too gloomy a view, probably occasioned by "her stitching pains." Still, she owned to its being a toilsome, perilous life in every season of the year save summer.

In a broad sylvan meadow at the end of the narrow defile, within sound of the chief waterfall, we had the joy of seeing again the rest of our party, who had made an afternoon excursion thither to meet us. At a quiet, rural little inn just below, with an outside gallery possessing a view of the still, deep gorge in front and softer meadows beyond, kind hearts had already ordered coffee and rolls for nine. All were unanimous, however, that the ample supply was sufficient for ten, and the good woman of Rein was pressed to enter and partake. This she gratefully declined, adding, however, that it would be friendly and helpful of us to allow her to drink a cup of coffee there at six in morning on her return journey to Rein. Not that she had expected the least attention to be offered her, and hoped that it was not intended as a different mode of payment for her carrying a lady's handbag. Although we had felt that one good turn deserved another, we made her mind easy on that score, and she went tripping forward.

For us there was still no hurry. The evening sky was brilliantly clear, the mountain-summits and dark fir woods shone forth a burnished gold, so that it seemed almost a sin to dive into the deep shadows of the valley below. Besides, the inn possessed some beehive sheds, and a view beyond which must not escape the pencil of the artists, who busily sketched whilst the others rested, enjoying the great crimson bars of sunset drawn across the dewy valley to the rippling sound of a mad, merry little mill-brook.

How much sympathy and respect has been afforded in all ages and climes to those serviceable creatures, bees!

The little citizens create, And waxen cities build.

Unlike Virgil, the good Tyrolese, however, would call them monks and nuns dwelling in cells, rather than "citizens." Formerly they delighted in erecting the most ornamental dwellings which they could devise for them, helping them in their constant toil by planting balmy thyme and other sweet honey-yielding flowers around the hives. These were constructed of wood, gayly painted with holy monograms and devices to add a blessing and security to the provident labors of the little inmates. They were, in fact, beatified bees, who had to be solemnly invited to attend the death mass when the owner died, else they would fly away, refusing to stay. If a swarm of bees hung to a house, it was simply as a warning that fire would break out there.