time
the boat landed, and went back, and was again laden; many heavy casks,
too, they took along with them, which multitudes of horrid-looking
little fellows carried and rolled; whether they were devils or
goblins, Heaven only knows. Then came, in waving brightness, a stately
train; it seemed an old man, mounted on a small white horse, and all
were crowding round him. I saw nothing of the horse but its head; for
the rest of it was covered with costly glittering cloths and
trappings; on his brow the old man had a crown, so bright that, as he
came across, I thought the sun was rising there and the redness of the
dawn glimmering in my eyes. Thus it went on all night; I at last fell
asleep in the tumult, half in joy, half in terror. In the morning all
was still; but the river is, as it were, run off, and I know not how
I am to use my boat in it now."

The same year there came a blight; the woods died away, the springs
ran dry; and the scene, which had once been the joy of every traveler,
was in autumn standing waste, naked, and bald, scarcely showing here
and there, in the sea of sand, a spot or two where grass, with a dingy
greenness, still grew up. The fruit-trees all withered, the vines
faded away, and the aspect of the place became so melancholy that the
Count, with his people, next year left the castle, which in time
decayed and fell to ruins.

Elfrida gazed on her rose day and night with deep longing, and thought
of her kind playmate; and as it drooped and withered, so did she also
hang her head; and before the spring, the little maiden had herself
faded away. Mary often stood upon the spot before the hut, and wept
for the happiness that had departed. She wasted herself away like her
child, and in a few years she too was gone. Old Martin, with his
son-in-law, returned to the quarter where he had lived before.

HEINRICH VON KLEIST

* * * * *

THE LIFE OF HEINRICH VON KLEIST

By JOHN S. NOLLEN, PH.D.

President of Lake Forest College

Brandenburg has, from olden times, been the stern mother of soldiers,
rearing her sons in a discipline that has seemed harsh to the gentler
children of sunnier lands. The rigid and formal pines that grow in
sombre military files from the sandy ground make a fit landscape for
this race of fighting and ruling men. In the wider extent of Prussia
as well, the greatest names have been those of generals and statesmen,
such as the Great Elector, F