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"Not to-night, Reuben, please," she said, more gently. My mother wants me all to herself."

"You're rather a tyrant, my pet," he said, “but I will do as you like-till to-morrow morning. God bless you, my darling!" And he kissed her fondly.

As Reuben went away he saw Mrs. Morrison coming back from the draw-well at the other side of the garden. He went across to her while Rose walked to the gate.

"Mrs. Morrison," he said, eagerly, "do spare Rose to me this evening for a little. Tell her I will meet her soon after nine beside the quarry."

Mrs. Morrison nodded. As she and her daughter stood at the gate looking after Reuben, the mother noticed Rose's pale face.

"Go and lie down, child," she said; "you look like a ghost, and I have promised you will meet Reuben this evening beside the quarry."

It was a warm evening. Mrs. Leir had been busy at the newly-furnished cottage till late, so that she did not see how disappointed and tired Reuben looked when he came in after a fruitless walk to the quarry.

She sat down to supper with her son; it was no longer so hard to give him up, for she felt that his heart was with Rose Morrison. All she could now hope for was to gain the love of Reuben's wife.

They had finished supper. Mrs. Leir stood folding her table-cloth, when a knock came at the door, and then, with scarcely any pause, a voice

"Mrs. Leir! Mrs. Leir! I want my daughter! I want Rose!"

Reuben got to the door without his stick, and opened it to Mrs. Morrison.

She tried to smile when she saw him, but she looked frightened.

"Ah, Reuben," she said, "you have given me a fright. Where have you hidden Rose?" Reuben turned a ghastly white.

"Rose! what do you mean?" he said, hoarsely. "I have not seen her since I left her with you at the gate!

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"Ah! mon Dieu!" In her terror the woman shrieked out her words. "And she went out this evening to meet you," she said -she checked herself suddenly, and dropped trembling into a chair.

But Reuben saw her hesitation:

66 Say all you know!" He stood over her sternly. "Is Jacques Gaspard in Hookton?" Mrs. Leir stood wonder-struck at her son's strange vehemence.

"I heard he was there," said Rose's mother, feebly, "and he is a bad man, Reuben. I know he will not marry my child."

But Reuben did not stay to listen. He felt no fatigue or lameness as he started for the third time that day on the road to Hookton. Fortunately, a chance traveler overtook him, and gave him a seat in his chaise, or his strength could not have held out. The busy fishing-village had gone to sleep when he reached it, but some of the men were soon roused and helped Reuben in his search.

Yes, Jacques Gaspard had appeared that morning, and a strange-looking cutter had been hovering round the bay, but the Frenchman had gone away early, and no one had seen Rose Morrison; and no one ever saw saucy, pretty Rose again-no one now expects to see her but Reuben Leir, and he, poor fellow, spends many a weary day searching among the rocks and caves for some trace of the girl he still loves.

And his mother never says a word against Rose - Reuben's dutiful tenderness is her own again-but she would give it all up if she could only see him happy, without that seeking, unsatisfied look, which will never leave his pale-blue eyes again.

MOUNTAINEERING IN MINIATURE.

I

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PACKED my portmanteau full of silent hurrahs, and set off with a lightsome step for the Boehmischer Bahnhof. It was a divine June day, and Dresden looked so bright that I could almost have disbelieved its evil odor. The club balcony, on Victoria Strasse, had got its afternoon shadow, and never looked more inviting; but there was a train to catch, and I might not pause even there. Prager Strasse, gay and crowded, wooed me to loiter; but I had cast off for good and all the lazy leisure which a Dresden residence begets, and felt that time was precious once more. In a few minutes I reached the broad, open space in front of the Bahnhof, passed through the serried droskies on stand there side by side, bought a ticket to Krippen, and took my seat in a third-class carriage.

I had often done the journey on foot; the highway from Dresden to Saxon Switzerland

about five-and-twenty miles-being itself excellent, while its situation is more or less picturesque throughout. The main objection to it is its openness, and the circumstance that Koenigstein and Lillienstein, the twin rocky giants that sentinel the entrance to the mountainous region, are visible from the outset of the walk, and are a long while in getting to look nearer. For the rest, the road traverses seven or eight tiny villages, and two towns - Pirna and Koenigstein -as quaint, crooked, and narrow - streeted, as heart could desire. For many miles it skirts the river-bank; after Pirna, climbs a steep hill, has an up and down time of it as far as Koenigstein fortress, and then plunges headlong down a straight incline- stone paved and ridged, for the behoof of clambering wagons-into Koenigstein town. Steep and long as is the ascent, it is pleasanter than the going down; the grade being such that running is dangerous, and walking almost impossible. Koenigstein passed, highway and railroad run cheek by jowl along the precipitous river-bank, onward through the heart of the country. The road is level, and parasoled with trees; but the squat, ninepin shaped steeple of Schandau church, on the

opposite side of the river, now takes its turn in making the walk wearisome by its unintermittent visibility. The scene, however, is really very pretty; and, were it not that his five-and-twenty miles beneath a summer sun may have rendered the pedestrian a trifle captious, doubtless he might swallow the incessant steeple with more than toleration.

But it was not my cue to foot it on the present occasion. Frequent pilgrimages to and fro had taken all novelty out of the enterprise; not to mention that my portmanteau did, strictly speaking, have some heavier things than hurrahs in it. So, for the nonce, I chose the railway-carriage; the noisiest, ugliest, tiresomest, most unprivacied mode of conveyance extant; but not wholly deficient, even in Saxony, in the exhilaration of speed; and never lacking in broad variety of human interest. And, to the end of insuring, while

was about it, the full flavor of the experience, I took a third-class ticket-an unfailing passport to whatever human interest might happen to be in the way. First-class carriages are empty, in every sense of the word; the seats may be softly cushioned, the guard may salute whenever he catches my eye, and request the favor of my ticket with such sweet cajolery that I feel, in giving it up, as if I were making him happier than it is right or lawful for man to be; nevertheless, the noise and weariness remain, and there is nothing better than my own dignity to distract my attention therefrom. As for the second class, it can be endurable only to penitents and to second-class people; the guard (whose behavior admirably gauges the traveler's social estimation throughout) now chats with me on terms of friendly equality; while my neighbors are hopelessly unpicturesque and ordinary, yet of such pretensions that I am dejected by a doubt whether they are not as good as I am, after all. No; the moral and mental depression brought on by second class outweighs the pecuniary outlay of first and third combined.

But the third-the third is romantic! It piques the imagination, and gives the observation scope. I fancy myself a peasant; I think of my farm-yard, my oxen, my Frau, my geese, my children; of that bargain got out of Mueller; of that paltry advantage gained by Schultze over me; my breath savors of Sauerkraut, in my pocket is a half-eaten sausage, at supper I will devour Limburger Kaese and quaff einfaches Bier. At the same time I am an observer, a notary public of humorous traits, a diviner of relations, destinies, and antecedents. My fellow-pilgrims are unfragrant, familiar, talkative, and over-numerous; the bench we sit on is hard, and the ticket-collector is brusque and overbearing; nevertheless, if there must be a human element at all, let it be as thick and as strong as possible, and let me get as near it as I decently may. In the long-run, I prefer my men and women with the crust off.

II.

SAXON third-class vans, like some English ones, are transversely divided into five open compartments, each holding ten or twelve persons. In my box, on this trip, was a young married couple of the lower middle

class, who had not yet stopped being lovers. They were in the full tide of that amorous joyance which only lower middle class, newly-married young couples, can know. The

girl was not uncomely-clear-eyed and complexioned, and smoothly curved; the young husband was stout and earthy, with broad face, little twinkling eyes, and defective chin. The two sat opposite one another, her knees clasped between his, and hand-in-hand. They showed a paradisaical indifference to stranger eyes, which was either coarse or touching, as the observer pleased. When one looked out of the window, so would the other; and each rejoiced in the new sensation of seeing the world double, and finding it vastly bettered thereby. Such was their mutual preoccupation that the guard had to demand their tickets twice before they could bring themselves to comprehend him. Truly, what should two young lovers, lately wed, have to do with such utilitarian absurdities as railway-tickets? Ostensibly, indeed, they might be booked for Bodenbach or Prag; but their real destination had no station on this or any other railway. Meanwhile, the husband was puffing an unutterably villainous cigar, and blowing the smoke of it right down his wife's pretty throat. She-dear little soul! -flinched not a jot, but swallowed it all with a perfect love and admiration, such as only women are (or ever can or ought to be) capable of.

the divination of character. It's your emo-
tional, impressible person who finds you out
most surely and soon: hence women are so
apt to pass their verdict at sight, and (preju-
dice apart) are so seldom entirely mistaken.
They cannot say categorically what you are
-the faculty of formulating impressions
being no necessary part of their gift-but
they can tell what you are not, and descrip- |
tion by negatives is often very good descrip-
tion. Of course, they are easily led to alter
or at least ignore their first judgment; but
their second thought is never worth much.
It is here that the intellect steps in, confirm-
ing and marshaling the emotional insight;
and, with both at their best, out comes
Shakespeare.

If in these days of committees we could
have a committee on geniuses-those whose
works captivate all ages-I think the most
of them would turn out soft-fibred persons,
of no assertative individuality. Egotists, no
doubt, but with a foolish, personal-not lofty,
moral, and intellectual-egotism: yielding,
sensitive natures, albeit finely-balanced, and
with an innate perception of truth and pro-
portion, sufficient to prevent their being
forced permanently out of shape. Were they
other than thus, they would be always trip-
ping up their own inspiration (meaning there-
by the power of so foregoing one's self as to
reflect directly the inner truth and beauty of
moral and physical creation). Obstinate,
prognathous geniuses must have a hard time
of it: inspiration is not easily come at upon
any terms; how, then, when breathless and
sweating from a tussle with one's own per-
sonality?

III.

"BUT you have lived in Russia at the least? You speak the language?" No: I was obliged to confess that I had not. The little agent looked hard at me, debating within himself whether he should ask me

My vis-à-vis at the other end of the compartment was an under-sized Russian -a black-haired, bristle - bearded, brown-eyed, round-nosed, swarthy, dirty - shirted, little monster, who turned out to be a traveling agent for some cigarette manufacturing company. The attrition of the world had rubbed off whatever reserve he may originally have possessed; and he was inclined to be sociable. He began with requesting a light from my cigar; and proceeded to have the honor to inquire whether I were of Russian extrac-outright where I did come from; he decided tion, observing that my features were of the Russian type. He meant it as a compliment, of course; but it is odd that a German, a Frenchman, and an Englishman, should sev erally, and in like manner, have claimed countrymanship with me on the testimony of my visage. The explanation is to be found, I take it, in nothing more nor less than my affability, which I can neither disguise nor palliate. Why else, from a street full of people, should I invariably be the one picked out by the stranger to tell him his way? It is not because I look as if I knew; and in fact I never do know; but he feels convinced, as soon as he claps eyes on me, that, whether I know or not, at all events he will get an affable answer from me. Or why else, in third-class carriages, and elsewhere, am I the one to whom every smoker applies for a light? It is not because my light is better than other people's, but because they perceive in me a lack of gall to make their oppression bitter. Yet, but for this experience, I should have supposed the cast and predominant expression of my countenance to be especially grave and forbidding; which goes to prove that the world knows its individuals better than they know themselves.

against it; and applied himself to staring
out of the window, and ever and anon spit-
ting toward any part of the prospect that at-
tracted his interest. As there was a strong
draught setting inward, I moved farther up the
seat. Presently, a thought of his personal
appearance visited him, and he pulled from
an inner pocket a little greasy box, having a
tiny mirror set within the lid, and containing
four inches of comb. With these appliances
the Russian went through the forms of the
toilet; replacing his box, when he had fin
ished, with a pathetic air of self-complacency,
such as I have observed in a frouzy dog who
has just scratched his ear and shaken a little
dirt from his coat. This human being had
an untrained, unintellectual, repulsive aspect
enough; but he looked good-natured, and I
have no doubt his odor was the worst part of
him.

Sitting beside me was a lean, elderly man, of pleasant and respectable appearance, and seemingly well-educated and gentlemanlike. He had a guide - book, which he consulted very diligently, and was continually peering out of the windows on either side in hasty search for the objects of interest which the book told about. He referred to me repeatIntellect plays but a subordinate part in edly, with a blandly courteous air, for informa

tion regarding the towns and scenes through which we passed; and by-and-by he produced the stump of a cigar, and asked me for a light, which I gave him. At Pirna he was painfully divided between the new bridge then in course of building, the rock-mounted castle now used as an insane asylum, and the perpendicular brown cliffs on the other side of the river—the beginning of the peculiar formation which makes the Saxon Switzerland. While poking his head out of the Russian's window, he fell into talk with him; and whether they turned out to be compatriots or not I cannot tell; but at all events my lean friend spoke my frouzy friend's language; they sat down opposite one another -a pendant to the two lovers at the other side-and emptied themselves into one another's mouths, so to speak, during the rest of the journey. The guide-book and the scenery were alike forgotten-such is the superior fascination of a human over a natural interest. They more cared to peep into the dark interiors of each other's minds than gaze at the sunlit trees, and river, and rocks, and sky outside. What is this mysterious, irresistible magnet in all men, compelling them to attend first of all to one another? Is it smitten into them from the infinite creative Magnet? I find it most generally sensitive in men of small cultivation, and in women, who, on the other hand, seldom take much genuine interest in grand natural scenery. The conversation of my two friends, so far as I could make it out, related mainly to cigarettes and matters thereto related. They fraternized completely: the Russian worked himself into paroxysms of genial excitement, and gesticulated with much freedom. Shortly before our arrival at Krippen he took out a pocket-case of cigarettes, and shared its contents with his new acquaintance; and the two likewise exchanged names and addresses. Every man searches for something of himself in those he meets, and is hugely tickled if he discovers it.

The remaining occupant of our compartment was a poor, meagre little fellow, pale and peaked, with dirty-white hands and imperfect nails, and dingy genteel attire. He was chilly, though the day was warm and generous, and kept rubbing his pithless hands together in the vain attempt to get up circulation. He was altogether squalid and dyspeptic, and smoked a squalid cigar; and said nothing, save in answer to some question put to him by his Russian neighbor. Even the endearments of the lovers availed not to bring lustre to his pallid eyes; and, when his cigar went out, he put it in his pocket without asking for a light. Some unwholesome city clerkship was his, I suppose, in a street where the sun never shone, and the drainage was bad.

The fortress of Koenigstein reeled dizzily above us, perched indefinite hundreds of feet in air on its breakneck precipice, shelving toward the base and shawled in verdure. But the first sight of Lillienstein, as we sweep around the curve, is perhaps more impressive. The rock, like most in this region, is of an irregular oval shape, its wooded base sloping conically upward to within two hundred feet or so of the top; at which

point the rock itself appears, hurtling straight aloft with black-naked crags. Seen from the river-level, its altitude is increased by the height of the bank-at least one hundred feet more; and, presenting itself end-on, it bears a striking resemblance to the dismantled hull of some Titanic frigate, wrecked on the tall summit of a hill. The gloomy weather-beaten bows rise in slow grandeur against the sky: there are the shattered bulwarks; bowsprit and masts are gone. Ages have passed since the giant vessel was stranded there; and the prehistoric ocean which hurled it to its place has rolled into oblivion. But still looms the barren bulk over that old ocean-bed, now green with trees and crops, dotted with tiny villages and alive with pigmy men. What mighty captain commanded her on her last voyage? whose hand swayed her tiller and hauled her ropes? what enormous exploits are recorded in her log-book? But for some foolish historic scruples, I should christen her the Ark, manned by Noah and his sons, and freighted, long ago, with the hopes of humanity. On second thoughts, however, that could not be; for if there is any truth in measurements, Lillienstein might have swung the Ark from her stern-davits, and never felt the difference.

IV.

SOME of these canal-boats, however, would have made her stagger; it seems impossible that any thing so ponderous should float; looking down at them from above, they appear to be of about the tonnage of an ordinary New York street. Their masts are in proportion; but their sails (which they ostentatiously spread to the lightest breath of air) are exasperatingly insufficient, and help them along about as much as its wings do a penguin. Nevertheless, fleets of them are continually passing up and down, and seem to get to their destination ultimately. Horses are harnessed to the mast, and tug away along the rounded stone levees, the long rope brushing the willows and bushes which grow beside the banks. One mariner dreams over the tiller; another occasionally slumbers in the bows, upward of a hundred yards away. Such leisurely voyaging can hardly be supposed to keep pace with the fleet foot of Time; and traditions linger hereabouts of boats that have left Dresden early in the spring, and, losing four months on the passage, have only arrived at Bodenbach by the end of the previous autumn! Can this be true?

We arrived at Krippen just as a soft gray cloud was poising itself above the valley, and sending down a misty message of rain-drops. The sun, however, peeped beneath, and translated it into a rainbow. I hastened down the steps to the ferry-boat-a flat-bottomed skiff about twenty feet long and sat down there along with a dozen other passengers. Charon 'took his pole (oars are unknown in this kind of craft) and poked us across; the boat, which was loaded down to the gunwale, rocking alarmingly, and the people ejaculating and protesting. At landing, we were beswarmed by porters, but I knew the coast, and, escaping from them, took my way along the pretty, winding path toward the old Bade

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haus, which reposes at the upper end of the | by Herr Boettcher had, as usual, three times
desultory village of Schandau. Schandau too much to do. Herr Boettcher (who looks
proper, indeed, is comprised in the little gar- like a mild Yankee until he opens his mouth)
den-patch of red-roofed houses huddled in and his pale haired helpmate received me
the mouth of the valley where it opens on with many smiles, and ushered me into a
the river; but its "Bad" reputation has gen- small, scantily-furnished chamber overlook-
erated a long progeny of stuccoed villas, ing the brook and the road, and likewise
standing in a row beneath the opposite sides commanding a view of a small villa crowded
of the gradually-narrowing cañón. The pine- close against the hill-side beyond.
clad hill-sides rear up within arm's reach of
their back windows, and as steep as their
roofs. For about half a mile up, the valley
averages scarcely a hundred yards in breadth,
while its sides are at least as high as that,
and look much higher. Down the centre
flows a brook, dammed once or twice to turn
saw-mins, and bordered with strips of grassy
meadow. The main road, unnecessarily tor-
tured with round cobble-stones, and misera-
ble in a width of some ten feet, crawls along
beneath the house-row on the northern side;
but the southern is the aristocratic quarter;
the houses are villas, and have balconies and
awnings, overlooking a smooth gravel-path
densely shaded with trees the fashionable
morning and evening promenade, untrodden
by hoof of horse, and familiar to the wheels
of children's perambulators only. Very charm-
ing is all this; and, after the clatter, glare,
and poison of the city, unspeakably soothing
and grateful.

As I walked along, fragments of the rainbow shower occasionally found their way to me through the leafy roof overhead, while children toddled across my path, escaping from white-aproned nurses; and villa-people-girls in coquettish white hats, and gentlemen indolent with cigars - stared at me from the vantage-ground of their shaded windows. At the garden - restaurant were beer-drinkers, merry in the summer-houses, and great running to and fro of Kellner and Kellnerinnen. The dust was laid, the trees were painted a livelier green, the grass and flowers held themselves straighter and taller. The air lay cool and still on the sweet earth, or moved faintly under the influence of a doubtful breeze. The brook gurgled unseen, and the noise of the saw-mill, a moderate distance off, sounded like the busy hum of some gigantic grasshopper.

Where the Badehaus stands, the hillridges verge toward each other, till a stone could be thrown from one summit to the other. In the square court on which the hotel faces, the aristocratic pathway finds its end, and thenceforward the road, relieved of its cobbles and otherwise improved, takes up the tale alone. The brook washes the Badehaus wall, and in the earlier part of its course cleaves to the southern side of the narrow gorge. The Badehaus places itself transversely across the valley, looking down villageward, and giving the brook and the road scarcely room to turn its northern wing. Its opposite end, meanwhile, thrusts right into the hill-side, and even digs a cellar out of it to cool its provisions in. The front court, when I entered it, was noisy with multitudinous children, and the daily brass-band was on the point of striking up in the open pagoda. The audience were preparing their minds for the entertainment with plentiful meat and drink, and the three Kellner employed

I ORDERED Supper, and then sat down at my window. The brook, which flowed directly beneath it, was somewhat cloudy of curren and disfigured as to its bed by indistinct glimpses of broken crockery and bottles scattered there. A short distance down it was crossed by a bridge communicating with the Badehaus court. Some slenderstemmed young trees were trying to make themselves useful along the road-side; and there, likewise, were ranged three rectangu lar piles of stone, awaiting the hammer of the stone-breaker; and a wedge-shaped mudheap, hard and solid now, but telling of wet days and dirty walking in times gone by. A weather-beaten picket fence, interlarded at intervals with whitewashed stone posts, inclosed a garden, devoted partly to cabbages and potatoes, and partly to apple-trees. At one end of this inclosure stood the villa, at the other a large tree with a swing attached to it; several small people were making free with this plaything, subject to an occasional reproving female voice from the direction of the house, and the fitful barking of a selfimportant little cur. I could also see the lower half of a white skirt, accompanied by a pair of black broadcloth legs, moving up and down beneath the low-extending branches of the apple-trees.

The villa, whose red-tiled roof was pleas antly relieved against a dark - green background of pines, was provided with an astonishing number of windows; I counted no fewer than fifteen, besides a door, in the hither end of it alone. Over the front-door was a balcony, thickly draped with woodbine; and here sat two ladies in blue dresses, dividing their time between the feminine diversions of sewing, reading, gossiping, and watching the passers-by. Small or large parties were continually strolling up the road toward the Schuetzenhaus; the women mostly attired in white, with white hats, and white or buff parasols; and all chatting and laughing with great volubility and good-humor. One pretty girl, walking a little in the rear of her companions, happened to glance up at my window and catch my eye, and all at once it became necessary for her to cross the road, which being rather dirty, she was compelled to lift her crisp skirts an inch or two above a shapely pair of little boots. What happy land first received the imprint of those small feet? Could it have been Saxony? They soon walked beyond my field of vision, which was limited by the sash. Here, however, came into play a species of ocular illusion, made possible in Germany by the habit windows have of opening inward on hinges. The upper stretch of road to its curve round the bold spur of the hill, a bit of dilapidated bridge, and one or two new villas half clad

in trees-all this pretty picture was mirrored and framed in the pane of glass at my left hand. A few moments, therefore, after the owner of the boots had vanished from actual sight, she stepped daintily into this phantom world, and proceeded on her way as demurely as though no such astonishing phenomenon had occurred. She was, to be sure, unaware of it; and we all live in blind serenity amid marvels as strange. Perhaps, when our time comes, we shall take our first walk beyond the grave with no less unconscious self-possession than attended the march of those little boots across my window-pane.

As the afternoon wore on, wagons and droskies full of returning excursionists began to lumber by, with much cracking of whips, singing, and jollity. Many of the men wore monstrous hats roughly plaited of white reeds, numbers of which were on sale in the village for a groschen or so each, being meant to last only a day. They were bound with bands of scarlet ribbon, and lent their wearers a sort of tropical aspect. Every vehicle was overcrowded, and everybody was in high spirits except the horses, who, however, were well whipped to make up for it. Meanwhile, the band in the pagoda round the corner had long been in full blast, and odds and ends of melody came floating past my window; in the pauses of the music I could hear two babies bemoaning themselves in an adjoining room. A small child, with red face and white hair, made itself disagreeable by walking nonchalantly backward and forward over an impromptu plank bridge without railings, escaping accident so tantalizingly that I would almost rather have seen it tumble in once for all and done with it. At last, when the miracle had become threadbare, the bathgirl appeared and took the infant Blondin away; and at the same moment a waiter knocked at my door and told me supper was ready.

VI.

SUPPER was set out on a little table under the trees in the front-court. The musicians had departed, leaving a skeleton growth of chairs and music-rests in the pagoda; and most of the late audience had assembled at the long dining tables in the Speisesaal, where I could see them through the open windows paying vigorous attention to the meal.

Several young ladies, however, under the leadership of a plump, brisk little personage, whom I cannot better describe than by calling her a snub-nosed Jewess, had got up a game of croquet, which they played with much coquettish ostentation, but in other respects ill. They were in pronounced evening-costume, and my waiter-a small, fat boy smuggled into a man's swallow-tail — said there was going to be a ball. The Tanzsaal faced me on the other side of the court, being connected at right angles with the hotel, corner to corner. It was a white, stuccoed building, about on an architectural par with a deal candle-box. A double flight of steps mounted to the door, over which was inscribed, in shaky lettering, some lines of doggerel, composed by Herr Boettcher himself, in praise of his medicinal spring. The hall inside may have been sixty feet in length, with a raised

platform at one end for the accommodation mark an increase of illumination in the hall,
of the musicians.
but was, of course, without suspicion of the
cost to myself at which it was being ob-
tained.

It was lighted by two candelabra; but these eventually proving inadequate, a secret raid was made upon the kerosene-lamps in the guests' rooms, and every one of them was carried off. I retired early that night, and, having discovered my loss and rung the bell, an attendant did finally appear in the shape of the bath-girl. To make a short story of it, no light except starlight was to be had. It is a hardship to have to go to bed in Saxony at all: you know not, from hour to hour, whether you are too hot or too cold, but are convinced before morning that you are three or four feet too long. But the Badehaus beds are a caricature rather than a fair example of Saxon beds; and to go to bed not only in Saxony but in the Badehaus, and not only in the Badehaus but in the dark, was for me a memorable exploit. I have reason to believe, however, that three-fourths of the hotelguests had to do the same thing; for my wakefulness, up to three o'clock in the morning, was partly due to the noisy demands and expostulations wherewith they made known and emphasized their dissatisfaction.

But I am anticipating. By the time I had finished supper it was growing dusk, and the dancers were arriving in numbers. The dresses were mostly white and gauzy, though here and there were glimpses of pink and blue satins, and one young woman divided herself equally between red and green. My pretty vision with the shapely feet was not among them. As evening came on the hall filled, and I could see the heads of the company moving to and fro within, and some were already stationary at the windows. Meanwhile the whole domestic brigade appertaining to the hotel, including Herr Boettcher himself, were busied in carrying chairs from the court-yard to the ball, to be used in the cotillon. The least active agents in this job were the two head waiters; the most strenuous and hard-working were the bathgirl and the chamber-maid. Finally, the only chairs left were my own and one occupied by a huge, fat Russian at a table not far from mine; and from these the united blandishments of the entire Boettcher establishment availed not to stir either of us.

Darkness fell upon the valley; the stars came out above the lofty brow of the impending hill-side; the trees stood black and motionless in the still air; all light, life, and sound, were concentrated behind the glowing windows of the Tanzsaal. The musicians had struck up amain, and the heads were now moving in couples, bobbing, swooping, and whirling, in harmony with the rhythm of the tune. Now and then an exhausted pair would reel to a window, where the lady would fan herself and pant, and the gentleman (in three cases out of five an officer) would wipe his forehead with his handkerchief and pass his forefinger round inside the upright collar of his military jacket. Then both would gaze out on the darkness, and, seeing nothing, would turn to each other and launch themselves into the dance once more. Between the pauses I could distinguish Herr Boettcher's brown, curly pafe hastening busily backward and forward, and began to re

The huge Russian and I were the only voluntary non-combatants, for the half-score of forlorn creatures (among them the chamber-maid and the bath-girl) who had climbed on the railing of the steps, and were stretching their necks to see what they could see, would gladly have taken part if it had been permitted them. It was now too dark for me to do more than roughly guess at the outline of my stout neighbor, but I could hear him occasionally take a gulp from his beerglass, sigh heavily, and anon inhale a whiff of cigarette-smoke. I also had drunk a glass of beer; but it now occurred to me to try the possibility of getting something else. I called the waiter and bade him bring me a lemon, some sugar, some hot water, and one or two other things, from which I presently con cocted a mixture unknown to Saxon palates, but which proved none the less grateful, on that account, to my own. The cordial aroma must, I think, have been wafted by some friendly breeze to the Russian's nostrils, for after an interval he, too, summoned the waiter, and categorically repeated my own order.

Meanwhile the music surged and beat, and the ball went seething on. "It is much pleas

anter, as well as wiser," thought I, "to sit here quiet and cool, beneath the stars, with a good cigar and a fragrant glass of punch for company, than to dance myself hot and tired in yonder close, glaring room." Then, somehow or other, the recollection of that pretty figure with the white parasol and the small, arched feet, which had marched so daintily across my window-pane that afternoon, came into my mind; and I was glad to think that she was not one of the red-faced, promiscuous throng. She belonged to a higher caste than any there; or, at all events, there was in her an innate nicety and refinement which would suffice to keep her from mixing in such an assemblage. The more I reflected upon the matter, the less could I believe that she was a Saxon. I had contracted, it may be, a prejudice against the Saxons, and was slow to give them credit for exceptional elegance of form or bearing. That graceful tournurethat high-bred manner-no, no! Why might she not be a Spaniard-nay, why not even an American? And here I entered upon the lat ter half of my glass of punch.

The waiter returned, bearing the Rus sian's hot water and so forth on a tray, and, having set them before him, hastened off to his post at the ballroom-door. The soft glock-glock of liquids, and the subdued tinkle of tumbler and spoon, now became audi ble from the womb of night, accompanied by occasional laboring sighs and tentative smackings of the lips-tokens that my heavy neighbor was making what, for him, was probably a novel experiment. I became gradually convinced, moreover, that it was not altogether a successful one, and I was more pleased than surprised when I heard him, after a little hes itation, push back his chair and advance upon me out of the darkness, entreating me, in the gentlest tone imaginable, to favor him with a light for his cigarette.

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This having been done, he stood silent a moment, and then observed, engagingly, that he had been informed the gentleman was an American; that the relations of Russia and America had always been cordial; that the fame of the American punch was known to him, but not, alas! the exact method of preparing it; that—

I here ventured to interrupt him, begging that he would bring his glass and his chair to my table, and suffer me to improve the op

THE STORY OF SHIRT:

THE

HISTORIC STEPS IN FRENCH COSTUME.

"Le roi François ne fallit point

Quand il prédit que ceux de Guise
Mettroient ses enfants en pourpoint
Et tous ses sujets en chemise."
Sat. Menipp.--Harangue de M. d'Aubrey.

portunity, so kindly afforded, of introducing M QUICHERAT, in his wonderful work

him to a national institution, peculiarly adapted to increase the entente cordiale to which he had so pleasantly alluded. He accepted my invitation as frankly as it was given, and in five minutes we were hobnobbing in the friendliest manner in the world. Like all educated Russians, he had a fair understanding of English, and I was antici pating an evening of social enjoyment, when the following incident occurred:

The first part of the ball was over, and an intermission of ten minutes was announced before the beginning of the cotillon. The hall-doors were thrown open, and among the couples that came out upon the steps was one which attracted my attention. The lady, who was dressed in white, after a moment sent back her partner for a shawl, and, during his absence, she stood in such a position that the light from within fell directly upon her face. The man-he was not an officerreturned with the shawl, and folded it around her pretty shoulders with an air that was not to be mistaken. They descended the steps arm-in-arm, and came forward, groping their way and laughing, in our direction. They stumbled upon a table only three or four yards from ours, and sat down to it. After a short confabulation, the man called out "Karl!" and the waiter came.

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'Karl, two glasses of beer; but quick!" "And a portion of raw ham thereto, Karl," said the lady, in the unmistakable Saxon accent; "I am so frightfully hungry!"

"Two glass beer, one portion ham," recited Karl, and hurried off.

The man pulled a cigar from his pocket and lit it with a match. I had recognized him before he kept a small cigar-shop on See - Strasse, in Dresden. He threw the lighted match on the ground, and it burnt there until the lady put out a small, arched foot, neatly booted, and daintily extinguished it. She was a pretty girl for a Saxon, especially a Saxon in her humble rank of life.

"Herr Kombustikoff," said I to my Russian friend, "I must leave you. I am very sorry but I have received a great shock. Good-night!" and I was gone before Karl returned with the raw ham and the beer, and thus it happened that I went to bed so early that night. I rested ill; but it would have fared yet worse with me had I known then, what I discovered next morning, that my too-courteous Russian had gone off after having paid for my punch as well as for his own! Did he imagine that I meant to barter my instruction for the price of the beverage to which it related? May this page meet his eye, and discover to him, at last, the true cause of my unceremonious behavior. [CONCLUSION NEXT WEEK.]

upon the history of costume in France, upon which he has been engaged for more than forty years, ascribes the reputation which the Gauls obtained from the earliest times for their skill in woven fabrics to the results of their commerce with the Phoenicians, and the settlements of Greek colonists upon their Mediterranean coast.

The authors of antiquity never spoke but with wonder of the stuffs which they wore, in various colors, in stripes, squares, and flowers.

From the time of their first contact with the Romans, the Gauls were represented as having a costume which distinguished them from every other nation of Europe. The style of it certainly was due to the Asiatics. They wore close-fitting trousers; leather shoes with thick soles; a small, square mantle, under which the body and arms were entirely bare. The Latin has preserved the names they gave to these garments: sagum, for the mantle; bracæ, for the trousers, from which the French braies, the Scotch breeks, and the English breeches. The shoes were styled gallice, which became the French galoches and the English galoshes.

History and archæology are barren of records as to the dress of women among the Gauls. Classic art is very little to be depended on whenever it represents barbarians, as correctness was usually sacrificed to artistic effect. The most important monument in this respect is that in the Villa Ludovisi, of which there is a copy in the park at Versailles. It represents a vanquished Gaul plunging into his breast the dagger with which he has just slain his wife. The latter is dressed in a sagum, the dimensions of which do not exceed those of a neckerchief, and a short, sleeveless tunic which covers a skirt falling down to the feet. The Roman arch at Orange, commemorating the triumph of Marius over the Cimbri, shows us two other women with a single mantle above a skirt, the body being bare as far as the waist. The same mantle with a flap drawn over the head is found in the bass-reliefs on the frieze of the tomb called Amendola, in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome; a beautiful work in which the little Gauls are represented playing in childish light-heartedness around their captive and desolate mothers.

After the Roman conquest the usages of the Gauls by degrees assimilated with those of the conquerors, who were the best administrators the world has ever seen. The quality of Roman citizen, which from step to step might lead to the highest offices of the state, was a reward to the provincials for public services, which Cæsar lavishly bestowed. Those obtaining it adopted the Ro

man dress, which in some degree affected those of the other classes. The influence of the provinces, on the other hand, in the matter of colors, was such that in the second century Aurelian permitted all except the imperial purple to be used by women. Hitherto the stola and the tunic of Roman women of the better classes had always been white," colors being regarded as a sign of poverty, lcose character, or of barbarism.

The distinction between the Romans and the inhabitants of the provinces ceased during the third century by the extension of citizenship to all the free subjects of the empire. Thereafter the old Roman costume, except as a mark of high office, was no longer in vogue in Gaul.

For women, the fundamental garment was a large and flowing one of linen, with a tunic reaching to the heels. In the fourth century the arms were bare or covered only by the folds flowing from the arm-holes, but in the fifth century they were always covered with close sleeves attached either to the outer or to the under tunic. In 1851 there was discovered, at Martres-de-Veyres, the tomb of a woman of the fourth century, of high rank. The corpse was in perfect preservation, and was lying face downward. The hair was of a dark chestnut, six feet in length, and separated at the end into four locks. The body was covered with four tissues of wool, which unfortunately were removed in layers without taking note of the form of the garments which they made. All that is known is, that a single piece enveloped the middle, and that the others covered the body from the neck to the feet. The outermost was fringed and of coarse appearance; the next was finer; the last, of altogether delicate workmanship, contained threads of gold and of silk. The museum at Clermont retains the slippers on the feet of the skeleton. These are of leather, pointed and raised in front, with no quarters, and with a thick sole made of cork.

In the Merovingian era, from the fifth to the sixth century, accounts of the costume are highly contradictory. The Roman monuments, which prove little in themselves, represent the women with bare arms. But what makes it more likely that this is in accordance with the fact, is the extreme severity with which the Salic law punished the laying of hands upon the arms of a freewoman. This offense brought upon the culprit a fine equal to that imposed for stealing

an ox.

In the time of Charlemagne the illuminations of the manuscripts represent the women invariably as wearing two robes with a manteau thrown over the head in the manner of a veil. The outer robe, provided with large, short sleeves, is flowing, often open half-way up, leaving uncovered the under robe, which sweeps the ground and has close sleeves.

In the early feudal times their costume had little changed from that of Charlemagne. A caprice of the tenth century consisted in tucking the flaps of the tunic in the girdle in such a way that the skirt fell in front and behind in folds like those of a bed-curtain.

Of the two tunics with which the body was clothed, the under was called chainse, the outer bliaud. Chainse is, in very old French,

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