spring into summer, and summer into the garnered harvest of autumn. Margaret loved Karl. Oh, what subtle triumphs love knows how to win for his own! Karl Reutner's heart had no more hope in it now than it had a year before; no less now than then, it would have seemed to him like blasphemy to ask Margaret Warren to be his wife: yet there were days when Margaret could not see daisies without tears, so bitterly did her heart ache to recall the hour in which she had rejected the love which they had once symbolized to her. She It was hard to tell how this love had come. Its growth had been as slow, as uninterrupted, as immutable, as unsuspected as the silent growth of crystals deep hidden in chambers of stone. It was long before Margaret had dreamed of it, and very long before she had admitted it to herself. wrestled with it bravely; it was against her will; she did not choose to love Karl Reutner. She was no less proud a woman this year than last. She had no less dreams and purposes for the future, and to be the wife of Karl Reutner was not among them. Nevertheless it had come to pass that his presence meant happiness to her, and his absence meant a vague sense of discomfort and loss. Vainly she asked herself why, wherefore! Reason was silent. The great interest of her life had been, still was,-in books, in study, in progress in the broadest sense. Karl Reutner had not studied, had not read; he cared more for the laughing eyes of a happy child than for all the discoveries of a century. To him flowers were events; a blue sky, and a bright sun, and smiles at home were life. The new world of which he had glimpses through Margaret's conversation, the world of history, the world of art, the world of science, seemed to him very great, very glorious. He kindled at mention of noble deeds, at descriptions of stirring scenes; but it was partly because Margaret found the scenes and events thrilling, and he always returned to his flowers and his music with a sense of rest. Sometimes when playing one of Mozart's early sonatas, so divine in its simplicity, and sweetness, and strength, he would say, "Ah, Miss Margaret, it is only the simple tones which can speak the truest. Listen to this," and while Margaret listened, it would seem to her that the world and its kingdoms had all floated away in space. "To be very good, and to make that all are happy, Miss. Margaret, is that not enough?" he said one day. He had grown nearer her, and dared to speak as he could not have spoken a year ago. 66 Is not that enough? Why must the little men think they can understand all? This world is not for that. It is that we are made pure in this. There comes another world for the rest. That is my creed, Miss Margaret." But Karl did not add the rest of his creed, which was, that Margaret had the light of both worlds in her soul. Often Margaret felt abashed before the spirituality of this man's nature; often she thought while she looked at him, that he had indeed entered the Kingdom of God, by becoming "as a little child. Then again, the worldly, the ambitious side of her nature gained the ascendancy, and she said: "This is a merely material life he leads after all; day's work after day's work, and a peasant's song at the end! What have I in common with him?" Oh very stoutly the carnal heart of Margaret Warren wrestled with the angel which was seeking a home in it. But the angel was the stronger. More and more clearly shone the celestial light; more and more clearly Margaret saw the celestial face. It was a year and a day since Karl came home. Margaret had looked forward to the anniversary day with mingled dread and hope. The pretty daisy-box had long ago been taken away from her room; the daisies had bloomed their day out, and died, and other flowers had taken their place. Margaret wondered if Karl would give her another such token. Except for the deep yearning desire in her heart that he should so do, she would have known that nothing was less likely than that he should do anything on that day to remind her of its being an anniversary. The day passed without even an allusion from any one to the past. In all hearts there was too sore a memory of the last year. Margaret felt this keenly. "Alien that I am in this house," she thought, "I make it impossible for them to keep the festivals of their love. Two years since Karl came home-only two years; and it seems to me that it is a life time." It was near sunset. A rosy glow was suffusing the lake, and Margaret sat again at her window watching it. Again came a low knock at her door, and again she answered without turning her head, and Karl entered. Miss Margaret," he said, "may I come and talk with you? It is that I wish that we all go to another house to live. This is not as it should be; it is small. I have I have talked much with Wilhelm, and I can pay all the money, but he will not. He is wrong; and will not you, Miss Margaret, help me to make that he sees the truth? For the little ones, when they are large, it will be that they must know more people; this place is not right. And you too, Miss Margaret, it is always grief to me that your rooms are so small. You should have large rooms, and many windows for the south sun until night." Margaret glanced lovingly round the rooms. "I love these little rooms," she said, impulsively, "I should be very sorry to leave them." As she spoke, a sudden memory of the daisy-box flashed into her mind. Her eyes filled with tears, and she could not hide them. Karl stretched out both hands with an eager gesture, exclaiming, "But Miss Margaret, Miss Margaret, it shall not be, if it is pain to you. I did not dream that you would be sorry to go. I will no more say.' "Oh it is not that, Mr. Reutner," said Margaret, "not at all. I believe it would be better for all to have a larger house; I did not mean that I would be really unwilling to leave these rooms; I was thinking of something else," and again the tears filled her eyes. "Oh Miss Margaret!" cried Karl. He had never seen tears in her eyes before. The sight unmanned him. His "oh Miss Margaret" was a cry from the very depths of his heart. The hour had come. Who keeps calendar for the flowers that each blossom bides its time, and blooms at its fated second by sun, by moon, by star, or by breeze! Who keeps calendar for hearts? The hour had come. Margaret looked full into Karl's face, and said in a low voice, "I was thinking of a year ago, yesterday, Mr. Reutner; and I was so sorry for having made you unhappy then." Astonishment and wounded feeling struggled on Karl's features for a second. That Margaret should voluntarily allude to that bitter day seemed heartless indeed. In the next second, something in her face smote on his sight, dazzling, bewildering, terrifying him. The celestial light in her heart shone through her eyes. Karl gave one piercing look, piercing as if he were seeking to read some farthest star, then sank slowly on his knees, buried his face in Margaret's lap, and spoke no word. Margaret laid one hand lightly on his head. Tremblingly he took it, lifted his head, still without looking into her face, and laid his cheek down on the firm soft palm. Karl Reutner could not speak. He did not distinctly know whether he were alive. With her free hand, Margaret stroked his hair as she might that of a tired child. An ineffable peace filled her soul. At last, Karl said, very slowly, almost stammeringly, without lifting his head, "Miss Margaret, beautiful angel of God, I cannot look in your eyes; to see them again would make my heart stop to beat. Will you let that I go away from you now, out under the sky? When I can come back, even if it is a long time, may I come to you? Margaret bent her head and whispered, yes, Karl." 66 He stooped still lower, kissed the hem of the gown on whose folds he had been kneeling, and then without one look at Margaret, went slowly out of the room. When he came back, the short winter twilight was nearly over; stars were beginning to shine in the sky; Margaret had not moved from her seat; the door stood still ajar as he had left it; softly, so softly, that his steps could hardly be heard, he crossed the room, and stood, silent, before her; then he lifted his hands high above her head, and opening them, let fall a shower of daisies: on her neck, bosom, lap, feet, everywhere, rested the fragrant blossoms. "Now you will let that they tell you all," he said, "now you will let that they lie at your feet." His tone was grave and calm; his looks were grave and calm; but his eyes shone with such joy, such rapture, that Margaret, in her turn, found it hard to meet them. An hour later, when Karl and Margaret went into the dining-room, hand in hand, Wilhelm and Annette gazed at them for a moment in speechless wonder. Then Annette ran out of the room sobbing. Wilhelm said aloud: "God be praised!" Then walking swiftly towards them, he looked first into Margaret's face, then into Karl's, and exclaimed again: "God be praised." "Wilhelm," said Margaret, "will you, too, forgive me for the day I made sad for you a year ago? Karl has forgiven it." Wilhelm's answer was a look. Then he fell on Karl's neck, and was not ashamed of the tears that would come. Not often do two men love as did these twin brothers. It all seemed to Wilhelm and Annette impossible, incredible. Their eyes followed Karl, followed Margaret with an expression which was half joy and half fear. But to Karl and Margaret the new happiness seemed strangely natural, assured. Like a crystal hidden in stone, it had grown, and now that the stone had been broken open, and the crystal set free, every ray of the sun that fell on it was multiplied, and the brilliant light seemed only inevitable. Later in the evening Karl put a ring upon Margaret's finger. It was dark, and she could not see the design. "Could you promise not to see till the sunlight should come to-morrow?" said Karl. "I would like that the sun should light it up first for your eyes." Margaret smiled. "Oh, foolish Karl! I will try not to look; but you ask a great deal." Karl turned the ring round and round on the finger, as Margaret's hand lay in his. "I have a long time had this ring,more than one year. It was to be for you if I died, or if you were to be married to" Karl could not now pronounce the words "another man." He went on: "I thought that then you would wear it and not be angry. I not once thought I could put it on for you with my own hand," and Karl lifted both Margaret's hands, | covered them with kisses, laid them against his cheek, on his forehead, on his heart. It was strange to see this lover, in these few hours, already so free from fear. His childlike simplicity of nature was the secret of it. Knowing Margaret to be his own, he joyed in her as he joyed in sunlight. He took the delights of seeing and touching her, as freely as he would bask under the blue sky. He could no more feel restraint from one than from the other. "Karl, if you really do not want me to see the ring, you must roll a tiny bit of paper round it," said Margaret. "It feels very large." "Yes, it is large. It could not be small to tell what it tells," replied Karl, rolling a fine tissue paper carefully over and under it, and twisting it firmly. "Mine own, mine own," he said, kissing the hand and the ring, "when the to-morrow sun shines from the lake to your bed, lift your hand in the light and look." on Margaret's bed, Margaret was asleep. When she waked, the room was flooded with yellow light. Dimly at first, like memories of dreams, came the recollections of her new happiness; then clearer and clearer in triumphant joy. She raised her left hand in the great yellow sunbeams, which seemed to make a golden pathway from the very sky to her bed. Slowly she unwound the rosy tissue paper from her ring. A low cry of astonishment broke from her lips. She had never seen anything so beautiful. On a broad gold band was curled a tiny thread-like stem, bearing a four-leaved clover of dark green enamel. The edge of each leaf was set thick with diamonds, and the lines down the center were marked by diamonds, so small, as to be little more than shining points. Margaret's second thought was one of dismay. Oh, the wicked Karl! To spend so much money! It would almost furnish our little house. What shall I do with such a ring as this?" 66 But surprises were in store for Margaret. When she gently reproached Karl for having spent so much money on the ring, his face flushed, and he hesitated a moment before replying. Then he said, with inexpressible sweetness, taking both her hands in his, "My Margaret, I have much money. I was glad before, for Wilhelm, and the little ones. But now that I can make all beautiful for you, I so much thank God. It was a chance that I have it. I know not how to find it, as your people do. It was the land." Karl Reutner was indeed a rich man. Lands which he had bought a few years before, for, as he said, "such little of money," were now a fortune in themselves. And it was in consequence of this increase of his wealth that he had so earnestly besought his brother Wilhelm to let him provide a new home for the family. "But now, my Margaret, it shall be for you," he said. "I hope that there shall be enough that you have all things you have ever had dream of." Margaret sighed. Almost she regretted this wealth. It was not thus she had pictured her life with Karl. But her love of beauty, of culture, of art, was too strong for her to be long reluctant that the fullness of life should come to her. "Oh Karl! Karl!" she said, "I cannot believe that I am to have you, and all else in life besides. Dear one, I do not deserve When the "to-morrow sun" first shone it." Karl was lying at her feet, his head resting on her knees, as he had bowed it when he first knew that she loved him; only that now he dared to gaze steadily into her eyes. He did not reply for some moments. then he said: "The good God knows, my Margaret. Perhaps there will come sorrow for you, if it needs for his Heaven that you be more of angel than you are. But for my love, that is only like the daisies. It is enough that it can make a beautiful ground where you walk." Since these things which I have written, many years have gone by, and have not yet brought sorrow to Margaret. The windows of her beautiful home look out on the blue lake; and into the nursery where her golden-haired children sleep, the morning sun sends its first beams, as it used to send them into her tiny room, in Wilhelm Reutner's house. On the wall of Margaret's own room hangs the picture of Königsee, and the head of the shadowy maiden of Ischl still wreathed with edelweiss blossoms. "I love her, my Karl. She told me that thou wert not dead. She is glad of thy joy each hour," Margaret often says. On the right hand of the portrait of Königsee, framed in velvet and ivory, and also wreathed by edelweiss blossoms, hangs an oval of soft gray surface, on which is a tiny, and faded, and crumpled clover," the four leaf of clover;"-" which saved my papa's life," little Karl says, pointing to it with his chubby finger, "my papa says so.' When little Karl is older he will understand better. This too is wreathed with edelweiss blossoms, fresher and whiter than the others. Margaret also has sailed with Karl on the Königsee, and she gathered these edelweiss flowers on the edge of the Watzman glacier. Above these hangs a quaint old bit of heraldry. It is the coat of arms of the Whitson family, and belonged to Margaret's grandmother, who was a Whitson, and well-to-do, years ago in England. It is an odd thing, and to some minds much more than an odd thing, that this old coat of arms should be an oak tree in a clover field, and that there should be this tale : That once when a sorely pressed king of England was escaping from his pursuers he came to a field of purple clover, with an oak tree in its center; and that a churl Whitson, to whom the field belonged, and who chanced to be mowing it that day, helped the king up into the oak tree, and lied bravely to the pursuers, saying that no man had passed that way, so the king, grateful for his life, gave the lands to the churl, and the right to a crest bearing the oak and the clover. This, I say, is an odd thing, and to some people more than an odd thing. To Karl Reutner, for instance, who is so impressed by it, that he has had garlands of oak and clover leaves carved on the cradle in which all his babies sleep; garlands of oak and clover leaves carved over the doors and windows of his wife's room; garlands of oak and clover leaves wrought on silver and on glass to hold choice fruits and wines; and wrought of gold and gems in many a dainty device for his wife to wear. And those who look closely at these garlands find that there is not one without a four-leaved clover. ANSWER. (FROM UHLAND.) THE rosebud which I had from thee, outlaws sit before the gates of society ready to spring in and commit their depredations wherever there are signs of weakness." He had removed his eyes from the bent head and trembling hands which held tight the little shawl. "What can be done with this class?" he added gently-" except to fight and keep it at bay?" her head, and fastening her gloves. "Please, Katey," she said, holding out her wrist. "It brings back the first time I ever saw you, to know you at all;" Katey said, taking the little hand in her own. "I buttoned your glove then, do you remember? The night of Janie Home's party." Jack and you. Who ever would have thought then that Jack and I would grow up to marry each other?" Josie was little given to dreaming, but she fell into a reverie over this. The question so vital, carried the girl. How odd that you should have remembeyond herself. "O, what can be done?" bered such a little thing," Josie replied. she repeated eagerly, forgetting her caution" No, I don't recall it. But I remember and showing all her heart at that moment. "Believe me, nothing-by such as you,' he replied earnestly-so earnestly that she could not fail to comprehend his meaning. "Association is contamination; and think of the inequality: it is one against a thousand. For they are banded together like an army." THE Christmas holidays brought a change; many of the girls went home; Jack's wedding called Katey to Easton, where was Josie Durant's home. She was sitting in Josie's own room after the ceremony, in the midst of the confusion incident upon a wedding, a journey, and a final departure from home. The satin gown, fluffy with lace, the delicate veil and wreath of orange blossoms, prepared with such care, were thrown carelessly now upon the bed; the dainty slippers, in which the dainty little lady had stepped from familiar girl-land over the boundary into a strange and wonderful country, dropped where the little feet had left them. The bride was arrayed in her traveling costume, for the wedding breakfast was over, and the guests, with the exception of a few most familiar friends, had gone. She was putting the last touches to her toilet at this moment, settling the elegant little bonnet upon "It is all strange," said Katey, and there was a tone of sadness in her voice. Josie gave her a sharp, anxious glance. Are you quite well, dear?" 66 66 O yes." "I fancied you were thinner than you used to be." She crossed the room upon some pretext. When she returned she paused behind Katey's chair, and, leaning over, clasped the little gloved hands loosely about her neck. "There is something I have wanted to speak of ever since you But the house has been so full of company that we have never had a moment alone." came. Katey made no reply. She had looked for this, and braced herself to meet it, every day since her arrival. She had ceased to expect it now, believing the whole matter to have slipped from the mind of her friend. "You have heard of that bank-robbery, of course," Josie went on timidly, feeling her way, as it were. And you know what is said of Dacre?" |