for me; unless you had, I could not have got to you, and it seems so long, so long that I have not seen you."

"But Annchen has found time to walk and take her pleasure with other friends!" the old woman answered, with some asperity. Then she took the small face between her hands, and her tone was softer as she said, "But my little one has not thriven upon her pleasure. What have these eyes been doing, child?" She might well ask; they had wept themselves very dim. "And what

has your heart been doing, to make the poor cheeks so wan?"

66

Breaking, perhaps," answered Annie, the words seeming to burst out unawares. Just then Herr von Heilmann entered, and Annie sprang up in visible, plainly visible, agitation.

"Gottfried will not stay long," said the mother; "he is very busy to-day with the rehearsal-for that he has put off all his lessons; but he means to give you yours here in the evening-that is why I sent for you. The time is short now before the grand event, Annchen, you know."

"Yes," murmured Annchen.

Having seen her seated, Herr von Heilmann took up his usual position, leaning in the window, so appearing as if he had some intention of remaining.

"Fraulein Gresham will honour me by being present on the first night?" he asked, after he had answered a few questions of his mother's about the one topic of all importance to her. "The first night may be the last," he added.

Annie was silent.

"You have a correct judgment, a pure taste, and a truthful tongue, Fraulein." He smiled as he named the last qualification. "I shall greatly value your unprejudiced opinion of my work."

"You do not think of being present?" he asked, in a colder tone, as Annie still remained silent. Then she looked up into his face. "If you will find me any little

hole to creep into!" she began, with a flash of enthusiasm. Then she let her eyes fall, and explained in a quiet tone, "Fraulein Grüppe says she cannot possibly find room for me.'

She did not tell him that she had offered a year's salary for a ticket, and had, before Basil's departure made her again a prisoner, rambled over the town trying to procure

one.

"Of course I have reserved places for my friends," Herr von Heilmann answered, the pleasant light shining in his eyes again. "If you will honour me by accepting tickets for three of these places for yourself and two friends."

"You are too good!" cried Annie; "it did seem so hard not to be able to hear it!" she said, turning to the mother. "But I can only use one ticket. I have no friends. My cousin is gone to England, to be at home at Christmas.'

These words," England," "home," "Christmas," together with the thrill of joy that had been such a revulsion from the other thoughts filling her mind, were too much for Annie to-day; having uttered them in a choked voice, she burst into tears. There was so much pain in the poor little heart which could not be wept away, that grief such as tears could reach would pour itself out.

"Your cousin has left. You are alone again!" Herr von Heilmann said, pityingly. Then, as he saw Annie's tears, and heard her convulsive sobbing, he moved to her side. He restrained himself, however, so far as to do no more than lay his hand lightly on her head, murmuring "Poor child! poor lonely little one!" Then, with the words, "Comfort her, mother-you best can; be very kind to her," he left the room.

Annie now flung herself at the mother's feet, and buried her face in her lap.

Frau von Heilmann stroked her hair caressingly, but said nothing. It was Annie who first broke the

"No, no, no," sobbed Annie. "I began to cry, because-because I am so lonely, so miserable; because I could not help it. thought of England and home, at this Christmas time, makes my heart sicken and sink. Last Christmas it was different; I had not then lost all. Was it wrong? Are you angry? My crying can do no harm. Is he angry?

"It pained him, child; it pained Gottfried. If you knew him as I do, if you loved him as I do, you would think that was harm enough." "I do think so-I will not do it again; but- She paused, then with a great effort she said, "It was not only to have my lesson that you sent for me to-dayyou are going to tell me something; but I know it-I think I know it."

"If so, we will speak of something else of you, of your cousin. He comes back again soon, I suppose-when, child? When he is here again, there must not be so much rambling about togetheryou must bring him here. Gottfried wishes it. Your friend must not be a stranger here. And then the betrothal-there must be one in our country fashion. It shall be here; Gottfried says so. He will be to you as father, friend, brother."

66 Are you is he- trying to break my heart?" cried Annie. She sprang up in a blaze of indignation, but it soon passed; she sank down again and moaned. "Forgive me. He is very good; you are very good. It is only I" She wept again, and so convulsively

now that Frau von Heilmann strove earnestly to soothe her.

"My child! my poor little one! speak to me. Trust me, tell me all!

I must I must speak, I must tell you, or my heart will burst," gasped Annie. "Oh, I love him, I love him, so dearly, so dearly! I know it; now it is too late."

"Too late," echoed Frau von Heilmann, and over her face gathered a cloud. She spoke abstractedly as she said, “Too late! I do not suppose it is too late. Patience, child. He is gone, you say, but he will write; if he is worth having, he will ask you again. Patience, child. So he asked you, and you refused him; and now he is gone, your heart goes after him; for this I do not see that it need break." In spite of herself, her tone was hard and taunting. After her confession Annie had hidden her burning face; now she raised it, and its perplexity lightened that of Frau von Heil

mann.

"You speak of your cousin. Is it not so, my child?

No," answered Annie. "It is best, perhaps, you should not understand. I ought not to have spoken, but you bade me, and my heart is so full. Let me go now, andand-"

She tried to rise, but the old woman's hands, pressing heavily upon her shoulders, held her down.

"You did not speak of your cousin? Töchterchen, is it Gottfried?" The mother bent down, and the last words were whispered in the girl's ear.

"Yes, yes, yes. But I know, oh I know it is too late. I wish, I wish I had not told you. I hope he will be happy; I will pray to God to make him so. She is so beautiful, and she looks kind and good." Of whom are you speaking, you poor child? And what do you mean by knowing it is too late '? And if you love Gottfried, who loves you, what are you breaking your poor heart about?

"Is it not true then? Is it not

"That your son, my master, would in a few months be married to the Gräfinn Rosalie von Thauenwald. That the betrothal was to be at Schloss Thauenwald, on the first day of next year."

A lie, a cruel lie! It is this the eyes have grown so dim, the cheeks so wan about. Blessings on them, Annchen mein; his mother has been hard upon you, vexed with you, that you tried him and pained him, and would not at once own that you loved him his mother has been hard upon you. But, Töchterchen, you are, and will be, my Töchterchen. He loves you; not only as you fancied, poor little one, out of pity and kindness, and in the spirit of self-sacrifice, does he desire to marry you, but he loves you with all that is best in love. His heart opens and closes with difficulty, my Annchen: somehow you, the little stranger woman, got into it, and you are there for ever." "He cares for me, for me! Oh, Mütterchen, are you quite, quite sure?"

For you, and, in the same way, for no other."

"But he seemed so ready to give me up, so pleased-what did that mean?"

"Ready he was, pleased even, because he thought you would so be happier. It means that he does not love with the self-seeking passion some men call love, but with a love, the strongest desire of which is the good and happiness of what he loves. Yes, he was ready to give you up, so far as to be to you only a brother, a friend-whatever you most needed. But, as I said, you are in his heart for ever. Oh, he is good, he is noble, is my Gottfried. Thank God for his love, my daughter."

"Mother, I will. I will, mother. I do, I will-all the days of all my

life."

thinking she heard a movement in his room.

Annie buried her face in the mother's lap.

Herr von Heilmann obeyed the summons. Did Annie ever forget how each step of his, as he came towards them, echoed in her heart? What she felt was like dying into another life, she thought-dying from a dull, cold, loveless world, into a world of love.

"Take this child, this little daughter of mine," Frau von Heilmann said. "Take her; she has been here long enough. Take her away, I say; she wearies me." "Mother!"

"Take her away, I say," she reiterated in mock anger, while the tears began to stream down her face. "She is more yours than mine: why should I have all the burden of her? Take her; she wearies me."

Herr von Heilmann paused beside the little prostrate figure, and perused his mother's face.

"He does not believe his own old mother! Töchterchen, look up; speak to him.”

Annie looked up: she spoke to him, but only with her eyes. It was enough. He bowed down before his mother: the trembling hands were laid upon their heads: by both that blessing was felt to be the true betrothal.

Afterwards he tried to lift Annie from the ground. First she turned, and, bending low, laid her face upon his feet; afterwards she let him do with her what he would.

Frau von Heilmann nodded approval.

66

"Right, right, my daughter," she said. Gottfried, for that you shall not chide her. Right, right, Annchen, true daughter of mine. 'A vos pieds et dans vos bras.' When I was a young woman, and I was thought to be a right proud one, I set my pride in this, that no man should ever hold me in his arms, whose feet I did not feel that I could kneel and kiss. I did not marry very early. He was rather

long in coming,-the man towards whom I could feel thus. He did come, however, and he was your father, my son-a father of whom my son is almost worthy."

When Herr von Heilmann's opera was produced, it fared a little better than he had prophesied for it, yet not much. But it was well given, and he saw and heard it with his little betrothed bride at his sidehis little betrothed bride, whose heart he now knew to be so wholly, so humbly, so wonderingly his; to whom his love was all-sufficing; who walked softly in the light of the new knowledge of its depth and strength, feeling that it made all places holy, all life sacred.

To a man the happiness of love cannot, and should not, be all-sufficing as to a woman; yet to Herr von Heilmann it was very full and satisfying, making him feel that he could afford to bear all things, even to the disastrous damning with faint praise of his timid friends. He was calmly content; not that his work should die and be forgotten, but that it should bide its due time for such recognition from posterity as its intrinsic merit could justly claim; happily not sharing the opinion of the French cynic, who pronounced "La postérité n'est pas autre chose qu'un public qui succède à un autre."

As for Frau von Heilmann-the

little one, as she is called in Wüstestadt, happy still to need some such distinctive title-let any who can doubt of her happiness: the writer of this bit of her story is not one of that number! She is by no means an idle little woman; she is proud to share her husband's labour, happy to know that she lightens it. Annie had played, and played wonderfully well, at that school-concert in her maiden days. Frau von Heilmann has played to larger and more critical audiences some few times, when he has been incapacitated by sudden attacks of his winter enemy, fulfilling for her husband his engagements to play in public.

On one of these occasions the writer of this small portion of her story last saw her. It was a pretty and pleasant sight; for beside the lovely little childlike woman, whose small fingers did marvels of delicate and intelligent execution, stood the husband, stiff and soldierlike, following the movements of those fingers with unremitting attention; and when all was over it was to him she turned, looking up into his face with eyes that asked plainly as eyes could speak-" Master, have I done well? Husband, are you pleased with me?" The answer of his face left nothing doubtful. It was easy enough to see how completely Annie was mistress of the heart of him she still loved, honoured, and revered as her Master.

Ir was exactly a month before the Austrian and Prussian armies crossed the Eider, that I found myself performing that historical operation at Rendsburg. Contrary to my expectation, I crossed it without opposition. It is true that, inasmuch as the Eider was frozen over from one end to the other, a solitary invader might enter Schleswig in spite of the whole Danish army; and so probably they made a merit of necessity, and pretended not to care who entered and who left the province. Considering the critical state of the relations of Denmark with Germany at the moment, I was much struck with the enlightened and civilised treatment which the traveller met with on both sides. Although pontoontrains were rumbling through the streets of Rendsburg, and engineers were taking the preliminary steps to erecting batteries which should command the Kronewerke, and the town was full of Saxon and Hanoverian troops, and every outward indication was in favour of a speedy outbreak of hostilities, not the slightest suspicion attached to those who crossed or recrossed the frontiers. A drawbridge not twenty yards long separated the German from the Danish sentry; every time they paced it they almost met in the centre. At one end of the bridge floated the German, at the other the Danish, flag. Groups of Danish soldiers inspected groups of German soldiers, at twenty yards apart, as prize-fighters do before the fight begins; and the peaceable inhabitants of the town came to look at the combatants eyeing each other. One seemed to be standing on a volcano with a very thin crust indeed. Observing people pass both sentries unchallenged, I followed the example, and in two minutes found myself in Schleswig.

Soldiers, with the little red-andwhite cockade of Denmark in their caps, were far more occupied, it seemed to me, in making preparations to resist the expected attack than their opponents were in carrying out their aggressive works.

Two strong lines of palisades, loopholed for musketry, flanked the bridge; and an erection of some description, the nature of which I could not exactly discover, was in progress on a commanding position. The Kronewerke is the tête-de-pont on the Schleswig side of the bridge which crosses the Eider; there are a few buildings used for barracks near it, and in a semicircular form surrounding it is the district claimed by Holstein, and which contains six villages, in most of which, at the moment of my visit, Danish troops were billeted. It was then reported to be the intention of General Hake, commanding the Federal army of execution, to summon the Danish General to evacuate the position; and the Danish General having announced his determination not to comply with this summons, a conflict was considered imminent. It did not ultimately take place, because the Federals were not in sufficient force, and the Saxon General did not wish to summon either the Prussian or Austrian contingents to his assist