of grief she had hoarded up in her heart so
long. They took her to baths and watering
places, hither and thither. The skill of
physicians was exhausted in vain upon her.
They led her from place to place, and she
was always cheerful when they were with
her, and the smile lingered ever on her lip;
but if left alone the dark shadow came back,
and at night her dreams were troubled, and
she sobbed in her sleep as if her heart was
breaking.

Her mother had died when she was young,
or, perhaps, she might have found a balm for
that early heavy sorrow, though it was beyond
the art of another. The father of her dead
lover and his mother, however, attended her
everywhere, and it was very touching to see
with what heart-aching anxiety they watched
over her. Her brother, too, looked upon an
almost solemn care of her to be among the
duties he owed to his dead friend as much as
to his sister; for the young soldier who slept
far away had been his college friend and
Dutzbruder, and of all feelings this friendship is,
perhaps, the strongest in a German heart: as
strong even as foster-brotherhood among the
highlands of Scotland. If love, then, and
watching and tenderness, if the very heart's
blood of all around her could have prolonged
that gentle life an hour, it would have been
poured out like water. Alas! there is little
hope; in another short week or two a bell
shall be heard in the little chapel upon the
hill, and a crucifix be born aloft: she shall be
laid in "The Court of Peace " (Fried-Hof),
and flowers shall blossom sweetly over that
early and sacred grave. War is a dreadful
thing, indeed, when such are of its fruits!

I rode homeward, rather saddened by this
little history, loitering gently through the
sweet-smelling hay-fields and ripening corn,
looking like fairy gold in the moonlight, and
I thought that I had spent one of those happy
peaceful days it does one good to remember.
Golden bells, as the Hungarians say, were
ringing in my heart: a gentle peal full of
love and gratitude to the Giver of all things.
and of overflowing tenderness .and charity to
all created things. My very breathings felt
like spontaneous prayer, and thus journeying
among hills and woodland, by cottages trelliced
over with the honeysuckle, and fragrant with
eglantine and sweet-briar, I saw the quaint
old city, with its gloomy streets and fantastic
air. with something almost like regret that so
pleasant an episode in my life was ended.

Great things had happened, however, while
I was away. A sixteenth cousin of mine
(thrice removed), who enjoys the high
hereditary office of "Vice Uncoverer of the Soup"
to His Effulgent Thoroughgoingness the
Margraf of Schwarzwürst-Schinkens-Hausen,
had chosen this day to give a féte (a hot
troublesome dusty crowded assembly
bewildered with noisy music), in commemoration of
the occasion when the grand-uncle of His
present Effulgency Rudolph, surnamed "The
Terror of the Burghers," recovered from the
chicken-pox. These occasions are, however,
of such frequent occurrence throughout
Germany, that their punctual observance goes
very far to stop the wheels both of business
and pleasure, and I had for some time made
a practice of forgetting them; although not
without many stern remonstrances from my
excellent uncle, or, I should rather say, from
"His Excellency" my uncle: for, at this
almost inaccessible height of German dignity
was he placed, in virtue of his office.

I had great trouble to excuse my absence
when I returned, and I fear my uncle, though
in the main a kind old man, will be long
before he forgets my defection. It never
seemed to occur, either to him or to his
guests, that it is not a very exhilarating species
of entertainment—or rather, that it is upon
the whole, and when you come to think of it—
more than sufficiently wearisome to pass a fine
summer's evening, standing about in doorways
in tight clothes and varnished boots. Besides
which, I am getting a little tired of hearing
my uncle and his friends tell me, so often,
how many quarterings a man must have upon
his escutcheon, in order that he may be
qualified to take off the boots of His Effulgency,
and wear a little gold key on the tails of his
coat in token thereof.

Since writing the above, I have been
at some trouble to ascertain what may
be the virtues of the Molke, and of the
different waters drank at German watering
places, to occasion the general emigration
which sets in about July—but without success.
Some say that a kind of furor or ungovernable
desire for unpalatable beverages seizes upon
the Teutonic races about this period; while
others assert, that having carefully avoided
all contact with water for ten months in the
year, exasperated nature insists on their
washing themselves during the other two.
Of their medical virtues I have heard such
wonders, as could only have been the effects
of a miracle (all attested by the principal
innkeepers of the place), and they seem to be
equally efficacious in matters which appeared
formerly, to darkened minds, to concern the
surgeon. A Bremen merchant whom I
consulted, a short, squat man, told me that he
had gone to Rehburg, "because he had broken
his arm.'' He did not tell me .whether the
Molke had set it, but added, with a sigh,
that "money was of little value, and did a
man no good without health." I answered,
that I was thankful to say I knew very well
that health was a good thing: but what
might be the sensations of a man who had
money, I did not know, and, therefore, should
now become reconciled to what I had
hitherto regarded as a grief, and advise my
friends to do likewise, and to profit by his
moral.

I question, however, should any of us break
a leg, whether drinking goats' milk will be
the right way to set it.