of her unreturned attachment, for a little later we
find in the very primitive manuscript from which we quote these words
of the countess:

I that have so many slighted,
I am at last--(unrequited?)

The story is now carried on in prose (my informant having forgotten
the text of the ballad), and says that "Lady Mary wanted or challenged
him to meet her in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in
disguise), "and that his father told him to go." Neither father
nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's rank, though the
following words point to their being aware of her sex, for the elder
Falconer is represented as saying,

If she is rich she will raise your fame,
And if poor you are the same.
]

OUR HOME IN THE TYROL

CHAPTER III.

We were soon comfortably settled in the old Hof. The spacious
rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant with rare and delicate
blossoms--Alpine roses from the rocks, white lilies from Moidel's
special little garden-plot, grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas,
veronicas, melisot, potentillas and lady's bedstraw, which, according
to Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the roots of others were good
for man or beast, their various qualities being all known to him. But
soon the waving flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was the eve of St.
Peter and St. Paul's Day, a festival when all work must cease, and
the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had given orders that the hay in the
wood-meadow must be carried that evening. Seeing, therefore, that the
more hands there were the better, the two Margarets seized each a rake
and worked as hard as any woman in the field.

On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our
picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus
sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men
and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ
Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to
praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their
honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay
was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should
consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The
newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three
crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and
sometimes but one.

The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gi