passed the Academie. A neighbor rushed up to d'Ardeche: "O
Monsieur! what misfortune, yet what fortune! It is true _la Bouche
d'Enfer_--I beg pardon, the residence of the lamented Mlle. de
Tartas,--was burned, but not wholly, only the ancient building. The
wings were saved, and for that great credit is due the brave firemen.
Monsieur will remember them, no doubt."

It was quite true. Whether a forgotten lantern, overturned in the
excitement, had done the work, or whether the origin of the fire was
more supernatural, it was certain that "the Mouth of Hell" was no more.
A last engine was pumping slowly as d'Ardeche came up; half a dozen
limp, and one distended, hose stretched through the _porte cochere_, and
within only the facade of Francis I. remained, draped still with the
black stems of the wisteria. Beyond lay a great vacancy, where thin
smoke was rising slowly. Every floor was gone, and the strange halls of
Mlle. Blaye de Tartas were only a memory.

With d'Ardeche I visited the place last year, but in the stead of the
ancient walls was then only a new and ordinary building, fresh and
respectable; yet the wonderful stories of the old _Bouche d'Enfer_ still
lingered in the quarter, and will hold there, I do not doubt, until the
Day of Judgment.

IN KROPFSBERG KEEP.

In Kropfsberg Keep.

To the traveller from Innsbrueck to Munich, up the lovely valley of the
silver Inn, many castles appear, one after another, each on its beetling
cliff or gentle hill,--appear and disappear, melting into the dark fir
trees that grow so thickly on every side,--Laneck, Lichtwer, Ratholtz,
Tratzberg, Matzen, Kropfsberg, gathering close around the entrance to
the dark and wonderful Zillerthal.

But to us--Tom Rendel and myself--there are two castles only: not the
gorgeous and princely Ambras, nor the noble old Tratzberg, with its
crowded treasures of solemn and splendid mediaevalism; but little Matzen,
where eager hospitality forms the new life of a never-dead chivalry, and
Kropfsberg, ruined, tottering, blasted by fire and smitten with
grievous years,--a dead thing, and haunted,--full of strange legends,
and eloquent of mystery and tragedy.

We were visiting the von C----s at Matzen, and gaining our first
wondering knowledge of the courtly, cordial castle life in the
Tyrol,--of the gentle and delicate hospitality of noble Austrians.
Brixleg had ceased to be but a mark on a map, and had become a place of
rest and deli