cloak, and knickerbockers of the period. This is my attire. My histrionic genius will be displayed in making fourteen profound salutations, in announcing everybody into everybody else's presence, and in generally tripping myself up on my own sword, from the rising of the curtain until its fall. If I might exchange-"

"No further exchanges are possible," says Miss Vivash coldly. "As dear Lady Pamela inclines so strongly toward hose and doublet, I suppose she must have her way. Such things are matters of taste. You, Sir Christopher, would be too incongruous as the Count Leoni-"

"But congruous, exceedingly, in the yellow flowered waistcoat and ill-fitting periwig of the Grand Chamberlain! Mein Herr" (and Sir Christopher turns to Wolfgang), “I wish you joy of the part assigned to you to enact. You are to make love, sir, in quick succession to the Duchess of Carrara (as played by Miss Vivash) and to her Maid of Honor (as played by Fräulein Jeanne). You are to be gallant, jealous, ferocious, and irreproachably matrimonial in a breath. You are also to wear a cherry-colored doublet, unearthed from the depths of Mamselle Ange's lumberroom, white boots, a Baden militiaman's sword, a plume, and tights. Receive my best wishes."

The evening of the first set rehearsal has arrived. A stage, at once cumbrous and creaky, after the manner of German carpenter's work, has been put up in the state dining-room; footlights are burning and going out at uncertain intervals; properties have been hastily got together; a scene, anachronistic as to date and country, has been brought down from the Fürstenzimmer; and all the members of the corps are quarreling with true theatrical warmth and spirit over their roles. The master, who as yet has not heard a word of the play, is to be allowed to read his part. Miss Vivash undertakes the functions of stage-manager and prompter. Ange -sore perplexed as to the likely effect of thunder on poultry and Strasburg pies, hot, disheveled from superintendence of the village carpenters, sits away in the darkest corner of the salle, doing audience.

"If you would like to put yourself entirely in my hands, Mr. Wolfgang?" suggests the Beauty, in dulcet tones. "I have acted twice in this piece with Lady Clearwell's Incomparables, Lord William Frederick taking Leoni. I know how every word, every look of the impassioned lover (poor dear Lord William Frederick!) should be rendered. Will you consent?"

"Will you consent to be troubled with such a pupil?" Wolfgang answers, moving instantly to her side. "I have no dramatic genius at the best of times. I am not sure of getting out a single B or P correctly."

Oh, we will make allowance for deficiencies!" she interrupts. "Of course, in such a position as yours, it is not likely you should have seen any first-class acting, but you will be on the scene with me nearly all the time, and with my abilities, as Lady Clearwell says, I can pull the greatest stick in the world through." Tact, it may be remarked, is scarcely one of Vivian Vivash's characteristics. “Now, if every one is ready, we may as well begin.-Sir Christopher, you enter from C. to L."

"

Wondering which of the seven cardinal sins I have committed, and swearing by every hair in my reverend beard-Garrick himself could make nothing of such a character," breaks forth Sir Christopher, with more energy than it is his custom to show on any subject. If you are bent on comedy, Miss Vivash, why not choose something all the world knows? There is 'She Stoops to Conquer.' I will undertake to give you Tony Lumpkin, down to the ground, and—” She Stoops to Conquer' requires half a dozen set scenes. We have one-if you can call it one! She Stoops to Conquer' requires sixteen performers. The Schloss Egmont Incapables (I hope you admire the title I have found for our company, Mr. Wolfgang ?)—the Schloss Egmont Incapables muster five-if you can call them five."

"

Then have a farce, something that shall make the gods laugh, even though they do not know a word of English.-' Betsy Baker,' or 'Poor Pillicoddy.' We have about the right number, it seems, for 'Poor Pillicoddy,' and I will take Sarah Blunt. There is not a professional in London can act a servant-girl better than I, and our friend Wolfgang will give us Pillicoddy Germanized."

"With the part of Anastasia Pillicoddy for myself. You are exceedingly appreciative, Sir Christopher! Will Miss Dempster's talents or those of Lady Pamela be best adapted for the colossal mariner, Captain O'Scuttle."

"Can Captain O'Scuttle wear Hessian boots?" cries Lady Pamela. "I am unburdened by false pride. I will take any character in the English drama which will enable me to bring in my boots."

"Then take the Grand Chamberlain," says Sir Christopher promptly. "Wear your Hessians, spurs and all, Lady Pamela, and let me be the Maid of Honor's lover.-Miss Dempster, you consent to the transfer?"

"It would be a vast deal simpler to give up the idea of acting," says Miss Vivash, with a movement of impatience. "Even in this benighted country I don't choose that people should connect my name with a failure."

"You should have settled these disputes

among yourselves, earlier," cries Ange, in a choked voice. "Only this morning I might have counter-ordered my supper. Twenty pair of chickens, Strasburg pies, salmon-and thunder in the air!"

"Suppose we go through the rehearsal first, and discuss our demerits afterward," suggests Wolfgang, in his tone of quiet mastery-a tone to which Vivian herself unconsciously yields. "The Chamberlain," consulting the book as he speaks, "enters first, and to him Count Leoni. Some one tell me the plot in three words, that I may know what ground the Count Leoni stands upon."

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"Plot!" repeats Sir Christopher, with a groan. As if our splendid play possessed one! I have read it six times, I have learned my part-Lady Pamela, rather, has drilled my part into me-and I know less what the whole thing is about than I did at starting. In the first place, the Count Leoni is not the Count Leoni at all."

"That is wrong," exclaims Ange, glad of an occasion to ventilate her temper at the master's expense. "Give me a man, Mr. Wolfgang, who is what he seems. I am no friend of concealments and disguises."

Under pretext of approaching a lamp, Mr. Wolfgang moves somewhat aside. He bends his face down, as if engaged in conning his part, and replies not.

"I honor your sentiments, Mamselle Ange," remarks Sir Christopher. "But I go a great deal further. I say, give me the man who does not need the same pair of lips to refuse him twice. This wretched Count, who is no count, gets snubbed by every woman in the piece."

("The part will suit me, after all," says Wolfgang in parenthesis, and without looking round.)

"Is rejected by the Duchess, Miss Vivash, flirted with, furiously, by the Maid of Honor, Fräulein Jeanne, and in the end is poor creature enough-"

"The story tells itself, without annotation, Sir Christopher," cries Vivian, her color heightening.—“Mr. Wolfgang, you are this poor creature, this Prince Louis of Savoy, who, disguised as his own envoy, solicits the hand of the Duchess Olympia. Let the rehearsal proceed."

The rehearsal proceeds: more smoothly than might have been hoped for, after prelude so stormy. Whatever the worth of the comedy, as art, it is not ill suited to the powers of the "Egmont Incapables." Vivian has been taught to act by the best professional instructors in London-I should rather say, has been taught to walk "stagily" before footlights, to pose in "stagey" attitudes, to talk in a "stagey" voice: the art of acting is unteachable. Lady Pamela, as an amateur, is above mediocrity. In the char

Leoni. Ah, now you have me at fault. Louis of Savoy could accept no second love.

Wolfgang pronounces these words with significance; he looks hard across the stage at Miss Vivash.

Accept no second love! A man who should win Beauty's shipwrecked heart must be content to take it with unquestioning faith, content to take it in such shattered, dilapidated condition as it came to him. Second, fifth, tenth-who shall reckon the experiences that poor heart has gone through since the day when Lord Vauxhall first launched his trouvaille, without compass, without anchor, among the perilous shoals and quicksands of London life?

"Second love!" exclaims Lady Pamela Lawless, with her airy laugh. "Vivian, my dear, fancy you or me going back to such preadamite matters as our second loves."

"My first love is the only one to which I have been constant," says Miss Vivash, unconsciously sincere. "By the time I was seven years old, I knew my looking-glass was my best friend, and I fell in love with what I saw there. I shall remain faithful to that attachment till I die."

"Bravissima!" cries Sir Christopher, applauding on his finger-tips. "If it were not for shocking Mamselle Ange, we would imagine ourselves to be in the Palace of Truth, get up a game of 'Confessions,' Miss Vivash enacting the penitentin-chief. It would be more piquant than the wickedest play ever written in any language."

The rehearsal has to be thrice repeated. The

master acquits himself creditably, B's and P's notwithstanding; but Vivian is a severe critic, and professes herself still unsatisfied. Mr. Wolfgang's points are not those with which Lord William Frederick brought down the plaudits of the house at Brighton. Mr. Wolfgang does not show tenderness enough as the lover of the Duchess, he throws altogether unnecessary ardor into his passing flirtation with the Maid of Honor. Especially does his rendering of one little scene go against her critical judgment. Looking after Giulia as she quits the stage, Leoni is made to exclaim:

"At last, then, I obtain what I have sickened for so long-woman's love, without the alloy of woman's vanity and self-interest. I am loved for myself, not for my-"

"Oh dear, no, Mr. Wolfgang, this kind of thing will never do," interrupts Vivian sharply. "You misunderstand the whole drift of the situation. Leoni is thinking of Olympia, only of Olympia.”

"But he has that moment besought Giulia, passionately, to marry him," suggests the master.

"In a fit of mistaken jealousy, not caring whether the girl answers yes or no. His manner to her must be supremely indifferent-Lord William Frederick acted it so deliciously that dearest Blanche Plantagenet was just the least bit in the world piqued his eyes must follow her coldly as she leaves the scene."

"Ach, soh! That will want study indeed.— Little Jeanne," says Wolfgang kindly, and holding out his hand to his pupil, come hither. This 'looking cold' is a part that will, indeed, need practice."

For a moment there is dead silence. Wolfgang's expression of face, the familiar "little Jeanne," the change from the half-deferential, half-bantering manner in which he has been receiving Vivian's instructions, take every one present aback.

Vivian herself is the first to speak.

"If an amateur performance is to have a chance of success, there should be, not half a dozen, but half a hundred rehearsals. Every point, as Lady Clearwell says, ought to be labored at, stippled up like a miniature. The Maid of Honor' may not be brilliantly witty!"

coach you all, separately and individually, in your parts. Now, if Mr. Wolfgang"-she gives a side-glance, then looks down—“if Mr. Wolfgang could run over to Schloss Egmont for an hour or so every forenoon, not exactly for general rehearsal, but just to polish up the scenes of love and jealousy, in which Leoni and the Duchess appear alone?"

What answer but one can Wolfgang, a man in nowise lifted to heroic heights above vanity, return to such an appeal? He will run over to Schloss Egmont to-morrow, will hold himself in readiness at all hours of the day between this and Saturday, if such be Miss Vivash's commands.

"And your pupils in Freiburg," cries Ange, looking up with a queer expression from her corner-" those excellent, studious lads you have so often told us about, to whom work means work, and Euclid, Euclid. What is to become of the pupils' mathematics while the master is junketting and play-acting about the country?"

"The pupils need rest," says Wolfgang gravely. "Overwork is sapping their intellectual strength. I shall give my excellent, studious lads a holiday until the morrow of Paul von Egmont's return."

"The studious lads, and their mathematics, too, seem to be of an elastic nature," retorts Ange dryly.

CHAPTER XIII.

LORD VAUXHALL'S INVENTION. WOLFGANG keeps his word. The scenes of love and jealousy are as conscientiously labored at as though the great Lady Clearwell were stage manageress, and everything augurs well for Vivian's approaching triumph.

Laces, satins, paste brilliants, Hessian boots, are on their road from London; pink satin playbills, with Vivian Vivash's name preeminent in big capitals, are ordered from Baden; notes of acceptances, yes, even from their Serene Transparencies at the Residenz, pour hourly in. Mamselle Ange, over head and ears in the preparation of calves'-feet jelly, English plum-cakes, and German zuckerbkherei-Mamselle Ange, more confused of thought, more uncertain of temper than usual, declares that a new reign of folly and ruin is being inaugurated at Schloss Egmont. From father to son, the Von Egmonts have ruined themselves after one fashion. It will be the same story now: the only difference that, with fast London notions, with a set of fast London prodigals to assist him, Paul's ruin is likely to come about at a somewhat quicker pace than that of his ancestors.

Everything augurs well for Vivian's approaching triumph; but Vivian herself is bored wellnigh to extinction! When the English post is in, when the late breakfast is dawdled through, when Wolfgang has received his daily dose of poison from the flattering, cold eyes of his preceptress, how, in very truth, should poor Beauty occupy herself? After Paul von Egmont's return, things may be better. Von Egmont, so she will say pleasantly to Jeanne and Mamselle Ange, between her yawns, will, at least, be human. He will have subjects of conversation (by "conversation" Vivian means the gossip of the clubs, the last scandal of the turf, or of the lawcourts), and he will have taste-to appreciate Miss Vivian Vivash's charms!

Meanwhile there are endless hours still to be slaughtered before his arrival—in this July prime, this perfect weather; no fleck of cloud, from dawn to even, on heaven's blue face; every black aisle of the forest warm with piny fragrance; the distant mountains steeped, from pinnacle to base, in sunshine!—endless hours of the too transient Schwarzwald summer to be slaughtered, not delighted in. Are there no Big Houses in the neighborhood, no resident families, no mortal means that shall rescue one from Schloss Egmont and from the vacuum of one's own thoughts? Is there nothing profitabler to listen to than the soughing of the fir-boughs, the fall of the wood-cutter's axe, the cadence of the little burn as it runs on for ever through the drowsy, carnation-scented Schloss gardens to the Rhine?

Providentially, at a late hour on Wednesday, a passing. chance of self-escape presents itself. Mamselle Ange's errand-maiden, toughest, most weather-beaten of Ariels, the carrier, news-bearer, hucksterer, and general diplomatist and emissary of the district, brings word that an afternoon fête, with concert and dancing, is to take place at Badenweiler to-morrow, Thursday. A special train will leave St. Ulrich at four, returning before midnight; carriages will be in waiting to convey the sommer frischlers from Mülheim station to Badenweiler; and five marks a head, so cheap is pleasure in the Fatherland, will cover the expenses, entrance-tickets included, of the day.

"Let us have our five marks' worth, by all means," says Vivian, coming languidly to life at even this mildest prospect of dissipation. "I will enlighten the savage mind by wearing my Derby white, and the parasol. A pity the only hearts to break will be those of a few provincial Fraus and Fräuleins.”

It is characteristic of Miss Vivash that, in reckoning up the probable number of her slain, she ever gives precedence to the women who

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shall die for envy over the men who shall die for love.

"And I," cries Lady Pamela, "will wear my pocket-handkerchiefs.-Oh, you may open those eyes of yours, little Jeanne!—I have a dress of spotted blue handkerchiefs, sewed together, and look charming in it. I wore my handkerchiefs at Ascot, and was called by my enemies a symphony in spots, and by my friends the ugliest woman in the ugliest dress on the course. You will see if I do not make the Badenweiler notabilities wake up a little."

"If we could only organize a party," sighs Vivian, looking hard at her own fair, discontented face in the glass. Schloss Egmont is rather worse off than most German country-houses for mirrors, yet it would seem that the Beauty never sits, stands, or leans, save at some angle from which she can contemplate the reflection of her own charms. Sir Christopher, I suppose, toujours Sir Christopher, and the inevitable Wolfgang must be the limit of our ambition. If we could only run across some chance man of one's own set, some civilized being, at least, to tell the people who one is!"

"

"Why not advertise?" suggests Lady Pamela. "Mamselle Ange assures me that everything-from barrels of herrings and betrothals up to challenges and Beethoven concerts—is advertised in the St. Ulrich newspaper. It would be a cheap short-cut to celebrity. A noted London Beauty, attended by foil and friends, is positively engaged to appear at the Badenweiler fêtes. The Beauty will wear the genuine dress and parasol, a little the worse for wear, that obtained so startling a success at the last Derby. Foil in pocket-handkerchiefs. Show-hours from four till eleven. OBSERVE! No extra charge made on admission-tickets." "

"Would it not be excellent?" cries Vivian, unsuspicious of irony. "Would it not wring the provincial female breast with envy?" Lacking all natural sense of humor, poor Beauty is selfabsorbed (even when the sacred theme of her own charms is touched upon) to a degree that curiously deadens her perception of ridicule.— "Jeanne, my dear," turning with her accustomed frank contempt to the Ugly Duckling, "how do you propose to array yourself? In white muslin -oh, quite impossible. I am not afraid of rivalry," with her thin, cold laugh, "but I can not allow two shades of white in the same group.Lady Pamela, advise Miss Dempster what toilet will best suit her complexion, and at the same time throw up my dress, and yours."

To bid little Jeanne relinquish white muslin is to bid her relinquish her confirmation frock, the one fresh dress her modestly-stocked wardrobe can furnish forth. "Decide for me as you

like, Miss Vivash; I am quite familiar with the part of Cinderella," she exclaims ruefully. "My only other clean frock is a pink print, washed out until there is not a trace of pattern left, and so much" (measuring off a goodly distance on her arm) "too short in the skirt."

"Delightful! The pink will be exactly the thing," cries Vivian. "Cinderella married a prince in the end. Who shall say what may be in store for you? Wear the washed-out print, my dear, and the coral beads as well. Pink and scarlet, for some complexions, go together charmingly."

Jeanne's pillow, ere she sleeps, at night is wet with saltest tears! When next day comes, however, when she stands beside the Derby white and the symphony in spots on the St. Ulrich railway-platform, she feels that there may be worse parts to play than that of Cinderella, more conspicuous evils in the world than a washed-out print without a trace of pattern left, and a string of coral beads!

Lady Pamela's appearance is, of course, frankly grotesque. You look at her with a sigh of pity for the generation in which such things are possible; still, the spotted blue handkerchiefs are clean. Her attire may be the result of caprice, fashion, a wager, madness. Want of beauty may have impelled her, in default of legitimate admiration, to challenge men's notice by a freak. Still she is clean. But her companion

No doubt when that training Indian silk first started for the Derby it was fresh as the delicate cream and rose-bloom of its wearer's complexion. Through what hard professional wear and tear, what theatre-going, what champagne suppers it has since passed, who shall say? It is fashioned with the long cuirass bodice Miss Vivash ordinarily affects. The sleeves are slashed with gold, the skirts are so narrow that one calculates, with painful uncertainty, as to Beauty's chance of surmounting the two-foot high step of a German railway-carriage. She wears an uplooped Rembrandt hat over one ear, ruffles of lace (so yellow they might have belonged to Queen Elizabeth herself) around her throat and wrists, and the parasol, a gorgeous, half-Japanese construction, with the monogram V. V. embroidered in gold and silver-now, alas! tarnished-on a white ground. What idle apprentice but took note of that parasol at the World's Fair; what idle apprentice but listened dutifully to the legend which gave that parasol interest?

The station-master and porters stare in official silence. The assembled crowd of pleasure-seeking St. Ulrichers stare also; not in silence. With fine, trenchant impartiality they criticise the Beauty's narrow, trailing skirts, Lady Pamela's spotted pocket-handkerchiefs, the tall hat, close

cropped hair, square elbows, crutch, and bracelet of Sir Christopher. Relying on the strangers' ignorance of German, they hazard plainest practical guesses as to the social status, age, wealth, occupation, and morals of each member of the group.

Hot with shame, Jeanne Dempster shrinks away from her party; she essays to hide herself among the crowd. If this be the effect produced by Hyde Park divinities in St. Ulrich, what sensation shall they not cause upon a larger scene, before a larger audience, at Badenweiler?

"Tell me what the popular mind thinks of us?" says Vivian, the moment they find themselves within friendly shelter of the railway-carriage. "Be amusing, with all your might, little Jeanne, and be candid. Translate, in detail, every compliment you have heard."

The popular mind does not think much of us," answers Jeanne sententiously. “The popular mind is uncertain whether we belong to a millinery establishment, a minor theatre, or a traveling circus from Leipsic Fair."

"Thank Heaven the good souls think nothing worse!" cries Lady Pamela. The ferocious way in which one old lady eyed our charms made me really believe she was going to cry 'Police!'"

"They are a set of utter barbarians, of ignorant, uncultivated boors," remarks Miss Vivash. "There is not a shopboy in London but knows who one is yes, and what sort of deference is due, too, to people of position."

And, leaning back in her place, Vivian folds her statuesque arms, and bestows looks of thunder on the smiling landscape-every league a new picture of sun-tinted beauty-through which they travel. Vistas of primeval forest; villages where the stork builds in the quaint wood-spires; the alder-fringed river; the poplar avenues, stretching away toward purple Alsace-what does Vivian care for such sights as these!—Vivian, to whom our whole fair planet's crust is but a kind of filigree-work for the setting of dresses, bonnets, parasols, and whose higher ideas of landscape are comprised by Kensington Gardens when the band is playing, or the drive to Twickenham!

The pleasure-seekers leave their train at Mülheim. From thence a rickety, open shandry-dan, dignified, like everything which goes on four wheels throughout Germany, by the name of droschka, conveys them, through a succession of old-world hamlets, past rushing streams and busy saw-mills, to Badenweiler. Everywhere is the same sensation caused by London art-dress, by London beauty. Housewives rush forth, barearmed, from kneading-pan or washing-tub, sawyers suspend their sawing, children their play; all stare with startled bovine wonder (like Eng