astonished slave. Sweet was the interview in
the orange grove, sweet the murmured
conversation between the strong young man and
the trembling patriarch, until the perfumed
dew of evening fell upon their heads. Halil's
liberty was easily obtained, and father and
son returned in safety to Beyrout. Then the
Weeping Chamber was closed, and the door
walled up ; and Fadlallah and Selima lived
happily until age gently did its work at their
appointed times ; and Halil and Miriam
inherited the house and the wealth that had
been gathered for them.

The supernatural part of the story remains
to be told. The Weeping Chamber was never
again opened; but every time that a death was
about to occur in the family, a shower of
heavy tear-drops was heard to fall upon its
marble floor, and low wailings came through
the walled doorway. Years, centuries, passed
away, and the mystery repeated itself with
unvarying uniformity. The family fell into
poverty, and only occupied a portion of the
house, but invariably before one of its members
sickened unto death, a shower of heavy drops,
as from a thunder cloud, pattered on the
pavement of the Weeping Chamber, and was
heard distinctly at night through the whole
house. At length the family quitted the country
in search of better fortunes elsewhere,
and the house remained for a long time
uninhabited.

The lady who narrated the story went to live
in the house, and passed some years without
being disturbed; but one night she was lying
awake, and distinctly heard the warning
shower dripping heavily in the Weeping
Chamber. Next day the news came of her
mother's death, and she hastened to remove
to another dwelling. The house has since
been utterly abandoned to rats, mice, beetles,
and an occasional ghost seen sometimes
streaming along the rain-pierced terraces.
No one has ever attempted to violate the
solitude of the sanctuary where Selima wept
for the seven little ones taken to the grave,
and for the absent one whom she had treated
with unmotherly neglect.

A ROVING ENGLISHMAN.

THE APPLE-GREEN SPENCER

Quietly hidden in the farthest corner of
the Pingzau, where not only the rest of Prussia
but the world in general is, or ought to be,
locked out by a splendid range of mountains,
there is an inn on which I fear to be
intruding. It looks a comfortable place, not
the less warm for being wooden; and I must
poach upon after-experience to let you know
that it is under the despotic rule of Gertrude,
or, familiarly, Gerl, the landlord's pretty
daughter. For her father has voted himself
a retiring pension — he is superannuated,
though, to be sure, hale enough. Under the
satisfactory administration of his daughter,
he finds the condition of the inn improving,
the revenue on the rise, and therefore he has
quietly accepted the Chiltern Hundreds of
the chimney corner. He says of himself that
he is nothing but an old-world landlord, fit
to serve his equals, who are old-world also ;
but the fine lords out of Berlin and England
break his peace, and give too many orders.
When the migration of the civilised hordes
began seriously to disturb peace in the Pinzgau,
the crabbed old ruler threw his crown into the
lap of Gerl, his thoroughly good-humoured
daughter. " Gerl," he asserts, " knows how
to deal discreetly with the people of all
nations ; " and in the practice of her queenly
craft she has retained her peasant freshness
and simplicity.

Upon this inn I now come down from the
mountains, during a sudden Alpine shower.
Gerl comes forth to meet me at her threshold,
kissing my hand according to the kindly
mode of salutation in the Pinzgau; busies
herself with the unstrapping of my knapsack;
leads me in; carries my wet coats to the fire,
and while she sets me down in a pleasant
corner of her room, I set her down in a pleasant
corner of my heart. How do I set her
down there? — as a being endowed with a
great multitude of little friendly ways, and a
broad homely dialect; with a round face,
dark eyes, fair hair, and an apple-green
spencer.

Gerl, having soon enabled me to form some
practical ideas on the subject of her larder, as
a matter of course leads the way, in the next
place, to the " Krirrlfalls." To this waterfall
Gerl is indebted for her extensive practice in
the management of travellers. The good genius
of the cataracts causes the good girl to sit like
Danaë, or like a damsel in a pantomime — if I
may allude thus early to the dimensions of
her little bills — under a tolerable rain of gold.
But, never mind the gold; we have another
dreary subject before us; for through just
such a gloomy rent as might contain a dragon,
or some other fiery monster, high up among
the snow-fields and glaciers (which Gerl calls
the "Kees"), a watery monster rushes; troubled
with a husky roar. Deep down below us, where
the valley opens, the water fairies are as
plentiful as lilies, only they avoid the sight of
man, and therefore nobody has seen them.
The Pinzgau people are by no means of opinion
that the fairies are a good-for-nothing race.
"See how that piece of rock is shaking, though
the torrent scarcely beats at all upon it. I can
tell you why that is," said Gerl. " Nothing
will grow there; and the fairies are at work to
clear the useless lump away." Either this is
a legend of the Pinzgau, or the discreet Gerl,
holding firmly by her fairies, has perceived
the necessity of adapting them to the
understanding of utilitarians, and gratifying the
prejudices of the men of business, agriculturists,
and others, who are on the way to
Gastein for recovery of health. So we stand
here, and see the torrent flinging pearls about