were spoken, "Have you ever found one four leaf of clover?" "What could he have meant?" she thought. "He does not seem in the least like a crazy man. I wonder what he had in that paper," and more than once, the scholars received irrelevant answering to their questions, because their beautiful teacher's thoughts were full of this perplexing memory.

That night the mystery was cleared up. After the children had gone to bed, Karl told the story of the four-leaved clover, and took from his pocket-book the little relic leaf. Wilhelm took it in his hands, and looked at it with stern eyes.

66

But why dost thou keep it, my Karl? Ach, it has cost thee dear!"

Karl reached his hand out hastily, as if to rescue the leaf.

"But it have bring me home," he said, "I will keep it so long as I live," and as he laid it back in the pocket-book, he smiled with the smile of one who recalls a bliss known only to himself.

It was indeed the "home which could cure." Karl grew better hour by hour. The wound healed, and, although the physicians said that the lungs must always be weak, Karl was in two months a strong man.

Margaret did not grow wonted to his presence in the family. It disturbed her, she hardly knew how, or why, and she chided herself often for the unreasonable

feeling. Since that first morning, when with his blue eyes blazing with admiration, he had compared her cheeks to red lilies, he had never by word or glance betrayed any feeling other than the respectful affection with which his brother and sister treated her. His eyes met hers with the same clear, steady response that Wilhelm's always did, and he listened to her words with a simple reverence like that the children showed her. Often when she was speaking, he sat with his head slightly bowed, his eyes fixed on the ground; and an expression of rapt attention; but it was as a man might listen to the words of a priestess. Sometimes when he looked earnestly at her, there was, for a second, a beseeching and remorseful look, as of one who implored forgiveness; but the look was gone so quickly that Margaret never fathomed its meaning, and no one else saw it.

Margaret often wished that Karl had not come home; and yet, she never said this to herself without being in the same instant conscious that in numberless, and

in some hardly definable ways, her comfort had been much increased since his return. Karl had seen more of the world than Wilhelm and Annette, and had, moreover, a curious faculty of divining Margaret's preferences and tastes.

"The teacher would like this, or that," he had said to Annette, again and again; and Annette had replied, "How dost thou know? Has the teacher said it to thee? She was pleased before." But when Karl had carried his point, Annette always found that there came in a few days, a strong expression of grateful pleasure from Margaret.

But

And so the spring and the summer wore away, and the winter came back, and the long months had brought no apparent change in Wilhelm Reutner's house. deep down in one heart under that roof, were working forces mightier, subtler than any which had ripened the spring into the summer, and the summer into the garnered harvest of autumn. Karl Reutner loved Margaret Warren. His love was so entirely without any hope of return, that it partook of the nature of the passion of a spiritual devotee, and was lifted to a plane of almost superhuman unselfishness. To say that he never thought of Margaret as a man thinks of a woman who might be a wife, would not be true. Margaret was a very beautiful woman; and Karl Reutner was a man in whose veins ran blood both strong and pure; he could not hear the rustle of Margaret's gown without a faster beat to his pulse. Yet, when he thought of Margaret's possible wifehood, it was never of her wifehood to him. He could not forbear thinking what wifehood, what motherhood would be to her; he could not forbear thinking what it would be to a man, if Margaret were to put her arms around him; he could not forbear thinking how Margaret would look with her child at her breast. But it was as a man might think, kneeling before the holiest of Raphael's Madonnas. His sole desire in life was that Margaret should have happiness. Each smallest trifle in which he could add to that happiness, was a joy unspeakable; that she seemed content, even glad in the quiet home life which he shared, was a blessing so great, that even one day of it, could almost be food for a lifetime, it seemed to him. The thought that it could not always be thus, he resolutely put away. But from the thought of asking Margaret to be his,-Karl Reutner's,-wife,

his very soul would have recoiled as it would from a blasphemy.

And yet the day came when Margaret found herself obliged to say to him that she I could not love him.

It was a strange chance which brought it about.

Karl's love of flowers was a passion such as only Germans know. How, in addition to all the hours he devoted to his business, he found hours enough to make flowers grow in every window-seat, nook and ledge. in and outside of the house was a marvel. But he did, and the little house was known far and wide for its blossoms. Margaret's sitting-room was a conservatory; as soon as a plant shewed signs of decay it was removed, and replaced by a vigorous one. Bloom succeeded bloom; in season and out of season she was never without flowers of red and of white.

or

One Saturday in February, a year from the day Karl had come home, Margaret was sitting alone in her room. It had snowed, and the day had been dreary; at sunset the sky cleared, and a beautiful rosy glow spread over the lake. Margaret sat watching it, and wondering, as all lonely people have hours of wondering, why, since the world is so thronged with its millions, there need ever be one lonely man woman. Some one knocked at the door so gently that she thought it was one of the children, and answered without looking around. The door opened, but no one spoke. Margaret turned her head; there stood Karl, holding in his hands an oblong box of daisies in full blossom. He had been for weeks coaxing and crowding the little things until there was a thicket of the dainty nodding disks, pink, white, red, and the green leaves also crowding thick and bright. The box was surrounded by a fine lattice work, painted white, which came up like a paling, two inches above the top of the box, so that one could fancy it a mound in an English garden fenced in with white. "It is for you, Miss Margaret. Where shall I set it," said Karl.

"Oh, Mr. Reutner, you are too kind," exclaimed Margaret, her face crimson with pleasure. "It is the loveliest thing I ever saw," and she bent her face down close to the daisies, still held in Karl's hands.

Margaret had never been so near to Karl before. The rosy lake and sky, and snowy clouds made of the window-panes behind her a background such as Raphael never painted. Her beaming face, and thrilling

presence lifted Karl to heights of exaltation, and, placing the daisy-box on the floor at her feet, he said, "They are but daisies, beautiful Miss Margaret; that was the fitting flower, for it is like my love for you. It is low on the ground, but it would bloom for you always, and you will not forbid that they should live always in your room?" And for the second time Margaret saw the blue eyes kindle as they kindled when he had told her her cheeks were like red lilies.

Margaret grew more crimson still. No words came to her lips.

It seemed as ruthless to hurt this man's love as to trample on a daisy. Yet Karl Reutner must be made to understand that there could be no thought of love between him and her. Even in that glorified moment, when he stood before her, tall, strong, upright, fair as an old Saxon viking with his golden beard and blue eyes, and pure, she well knew, as Adam in Eden, Margaret Warren remembered that Karl Reutner was beneath her in what the world calls station. There was a shade of something not wholly kind in the very kindness and gentleness with which she said:

"But, Mr. Reutner, I cannot let you give me the daisies to mean that. I am so sorry, so grieved to pain you, but I must be true."

Margaret's eyes filled with tears as she saw the look of distress on Karl's face. He stooped to pick up the box without saying a word. Margaret's heart could not bear this.

"But, Mr. Reutner, you need not take the daisies away. I would love to have them in my room, now that you understand me. You were so good to make them grow like this for me. They will be beautiful all winter," and Margaret laid her hand gently and caressingly on the edge of the box.

66

Oh, Miss Margaret, I thank you," said Karl, in a very low voice. "You need not to fear that the daisies should say words to you, if you are willing that they live at your feet. They have but eyes; they will not speak. You will let them stay?" "Oh, yes, indeed I will," replied Margaret, trying to speak in a natural voice, as if it were an every-day gift, and making room for them on a little stand by the window. Then, while Karl was arranging the box and the saucer, she went on talking with a forced rapidity and earnestness of manner.

Karl listened as one who only partly heard the words. When she stopped he said in his old, grave, calm tone, lifting his eyes to hers steadily as usual: "Thank you, Miss Margaret," and left the room.

Margaret burst into tears. She was very unhappy and utterly perplexed.

"Whoever heard of a man's thanking a woman like that, and going away looking so content and glad when she had just told him she could not marry him!" said Margaret to herself, "and what is to become of me now? I cannot live in the house with him any longer; it will not be kind; I must go away. Oh, I wish he had never come home," and Margaret threw herself on the bed, and cried herself to sleep.

When Annette knocked at the door to ask why she did not come down to tea, Margaret roused herself from her heavy sleep, and looked into Annette's face with a bewildered expression of distress. She could not remember at first what had happened. In a second it all flashed into her mind, and burying her face in the pillow she groaned aloud. Annette was frightened. She had never seen the “teacher lose self-control. She thought she must be very ill.

"Oh, Miss Margaret, what have you? It is a fever"-for Margaret's face was of a scarlet color. "Karl must bring the doctor," exclaimed Annette.

No, no, Mrs. Reutner," cried Margaret. "I beg you will not say a word to any one. I am not ill. I have slept too heavily. I will not come down stairs to-night, but I shall be well to-morrow."

It was the first time that Margaret's chair at the table had been vacant. Annette's explanation of her absence did not lessen the sense of gloom which every one felt.

Margaret ill! It was incredible.

66 She have never looked so beautiful as I saw her not three hours ago," said Karl incredulously.

Something in his tone fell strangely on Wilhelm's ear. He turned a keen, quick He turned a keen, quick look upon his brother's face, but Karl met it with one open as day, in which nothing could be read except unfeigned anxiety and wonder.

When Annette went to Margaret's room later in the evening, Margaret's face was pale, and all traces of feverish excitement had passed away. She had had two hours of hard struggle with herself; but she had resolved that she must seek another home, and, having come to this resolution, she

wished to lose no time in carrying it

out.

"Sit down, dear Mrs. Reutner," she said, "I must have a little talk with you."

Annette looked uneasy. She had never seen Margaret look as she looked now. She knew that bad news was coming.

"My dear, good, kind friend, I must go away from you," said Margaret, and her voice trembled.

Annette gazed speechlessly into Margaret's face.

"Oh, Miss Margaret, what is it? Is it that you must go home?"

Margaret shook her head. "No, Mrs. Reutner, I have no expectation of leaving Chicago; but I must find another home. It is not best for me to live in your house any longer."

Great tears rolled down Annette's face, and she sobbed: "Oh, Miss Margaret, is it nothing we can do to make all better for you. It will break the father's heart and the little ones'. Will you not tell us? We have much more money now; we can buy all for you, if you will only show us how it is to be," and Annette cried heartily.

Margaret was distressed. It seemed disloyal to Karl to give her reason; cruel to Annette and Wilhelm to withhold it. She remained silent for some time. Annette sobbed again a few broken words, "Oh, Miss Margaret, you do not know what it is to the house that you are in it. Karl said, only yesterday, that you were the good angel to each one in the house. Oh, tell us, Miss Margaret. Is it that you must have larger rooms? Wilhelm will build all you want,-one, two, more."

The mention of Karl's name gave Margaret more strength to proceed.

"I will tell you, my kind friend," she said, the real truth. It is for your brother that I must go away. He loves me; he told me so this afternoon; and it is not delicate or kind after that for me to live in the same house with him. I shall never be so happy anywhere else. Nobody will make me so comfortable, and I am very, very sorry to go away; but I must," and Margaret, in her turn, was very near crying.

Annette had dried her tears, sprung to her feet, and now stood gazing at Margaret with such stupefaction in her face that Margaret could scarcely keep from smiling in spite of her distress.

"Karl-tell you he love you-to be his wife?" gasped Annette. "Oh, Miss Mar