nursed on her knee many a time in the years agone.

But, who is this besides?

"What! Madaleine?" exclaims Fritz.

"Yes, it is I," she replies demurely, a merry smile dancing on her face,
and a glad light in the bright blue eyes.

This was the surprise Madame Dort had prepared for Fritz--a pleasant
one, wasn't it, with which to welcome him home?

CHAPTER TWELVE.

FAMILY COUNCILS.

"I have to thank you, dear mother, for this!" said Fritz, with an
affectionate smile, to Madame Dort. "How did you contrive such a
pleasant surprise?"

"You told me of your trouble, my son," she replied; "so I did my best to
help you under the circumstances."

"And you, little traitress," exclaimed he, turning to Madaleine. "How
could you keep me in suspense all those weary weeks that have elapsed
since the year began?"

"I did not think you cared so much," said she defiantly.

"Cared!" he repeated.

"Well, it was not my fault," she explained. "When I wrote to you last,
I really never thought I should see you again."

"You don't know me yet," said Fritz. "I should have hunted you out to
the world's end! I had determined, as soon as I had seen mother, to go
off to Darmstadt and find out what had become of you."

"And a nice wild-goose chase you would have had," answered Madaleine,
tossing her head, and shaking the silky masses of golden hair, now
unconfined by any jealous coiffe, with her blue eyes laughing fun. "You
wouldn't have found me there! The baroness--"

"Hang her!" interrupted Fritz angrily; "I should like to settle her!"

"Ah, I wouldn't mind your doing that now," continued the girl naively;
"she treated me very unkindly at the end."

"The brute!" said Fritz indignantly.

"Her son--the young baron, you know--came home from the war in January.
He was invalided, but I don't think there was anything the matter with
him at all; for, no sooner had he got back to the castle than he began
worrying me, paying all sorts of attention and pestering me with his
presence."

"Puppy!" exclaimed Fritz; "I would have paid him some delicate little
attentions if I'd been there!"

"Oh, I knew how to treat him," said Madaleine. "I soon made him keep
his distance! But it is the Baroness Stolzenkop that I complain of; she
actually taxed me with encouraging him!"

"Indeed?" interrogated Fritz.

"Yes; and, when I told her I wouldn't choose her fop of a son if there
wasn't another man in Germany, why she accused me o