begins forthwith. We will be off in ten
minutes."

The note, Englished, ran thus:

"Dear Sir. Pray come at once. Marie has
cut off the top of her thumb. Receive, dear
sir, the assurance of my very high consideration.
"R. STAMFFER."

"We were quickly ready, and in the carriage.

"Well," said the doctor, "you certainly take
things calmly enough. I expected to find you
in a fever of excitement and impatience."

"Me? Why so? What has this rather
dirty little note to do with me? And who upon
earth is 'R. Stamffer?'"

"Is there no instinct in human affection,"
asked the doctor, with assumed gravity, "that
might whisper to you that this note is from no
less a person than Rose Sebille? She married
Karl Stamffer, a German Swiss, about eight
years since, and is, I assure you, a model
housewife—a perfect 'meat-mother' as the
Germans say. She has five children, is grown
very fat, and——My dear Frank, you look quite
pale. What's the matter?"

"I—well, I don't know exactly," I replied.
"All these changes have come about
unobserved by you. I had in my mind a little
bright-haired fairy in short frocks and trousers,
whose flounces were, day after day, distributed
among the brambles in our haunts of play.
And now——Well, well."

We drove through the old scenes—past our
châlet, past the gate, and the path where Rose
Sebille, who had become Stamffer, sobbed out
her adieux, with the rest—past the old  plane-
tree avenue, and the little pier on which I
had passed many an hour catching little pale-
green spectres of fish, the like of which I have
never met with elsewhere. Then on past
Chillon, always at our side the deep blue lake,
and, beyond, the royal Alps of Savoy, crowned
with cloud and snow, and smiling or frowning
as the sunshine or the shadows fell.

"There is Rose Stamffer's mansion," said
my companion, pointing to a pretty châlet on
the side of a hill.

We left the high road and turned into the
approach, under the cool shade of an avenue
of limes. It really seemed a delicious spot.

There was a large court or farm-yard at the
side of the house, across which people were hastily
passing and repassing. Evidently something of
an exciting nature was going forward. We
rang a large bell, which gave forth what seemed
an unnecessarily vociferous peal, and was
responded to by several dogs, that burst forth
barking furiously. Then appeared a female
form, with bare and reddish arms, a wide good-
natured face, fringed all round with little light
curls, and a waist of considerable size, girt
with a discoloured apron, which the wearer
sought to undo, but, failing, triced it up round
her portly form.

"I am so glad to see you, doctor," she
called out, in a voice which, though sweet, was
certainly loud. "Marie has cut off the top of
her thumb, and I am sure you can sew it on
nicely again! How untidy I am!" (This in
a series of melodious shouts.) "I am not fit
to see anybody! We have just killed a pig,
and we are going to cut him up! Madame G—'s
young ladies are come to help us with the
sausages! I beg your pardon, sir" (to me);
"pray walk in. This way."

I saw my friend suppressing his laughter as
we went away—stumbling over chairs, benches,
&c., that had been brought into the passages from
the kitchen, to be out of the way of the porcine
solemnities, to which, in middle-class Swiss
establishments, everything succumbs at least
once a year.

Presently the suffering Marie, accompanied
by the top of her thumb, was conducted
into the room. She had endured much pain,
and—after the manner of the poorer Swiss,
when attacked by malady in any part of
their frames—had tied a handkerchief over her
head!

The thumb was quickly restored to its pristine
shape; and then the doctor, turning gravely
to the stout lady with the rosy arms, quietly
observed:

"Madame Stamffer, here is a gentleman who
desires to kiss your hand! Surely you
remember Frank C.?"

There was a little scream, or rather shout—a
merry laugh, and both my hands were in the
grasp of Rose Sebille. Soundly shaken they
were, and it was with labour and difficulty, by
flashes, as it seemed, that I began to recognise
in this huge hearty woman my fairy Rose. Then,
too, that horrible pig loured over the scene,
and, even while the little volume of our youth
began to open before us, the duties owing to
the yet undismembered brute fell like a shadow
across the page.

Maid Marie, who had discarded her handkerchief
and her tears together, now reappeared,
and, making two imaginary gashes across her
mottled arm, whispered anxiously in her
mistress's ear.

Taking this as a signal to depart, we rose;
but our hostess had no idea of parting with so
old an ally.

"You must stay with us, dear Mr. Frank—
dear Frank—and indeed you can be of the
greatest service to us, for M. Stamffer is gone
to Berne, not to return till to-morrow, and
hands are scarce."

I looked at Marie's decapitated thumb, and
thought my own might become scarcer. But
Rose would take no denial.

"Let the doctor go his rounds, and join us
at dinner at six. You can drive home by moon-
light."

Thus it was settled. The doctor drove his
way, and I was conducted to the scene of recent
slaughter.

Dear Rose! She called me Frank, as she
had done twenty years ago, and her pleasure
at the meeting was honest and unfeigned.
She was in the highest spirits. The children