rden to-day was a perfect wilderness of roses; we brought
as many as we could back to Zurich, and one I left on the
window-ledge of our old room--an unsigned offering from a
past to a present occupant. It was a red rose too, and
therefore of particularly good omen at the Halden. I wonder
if your Mr. Davidson has found it yet, and is asking himself
how it came?

"And now, my dearest Aunt Olivia, I kiss you good-night, and
end my letter with the sweet salutation which we have been
hearing all day from peasant folk--'Gruess' Gott!'

"Lovingly, your namesake niece,

"OLIVIA.

"_Midnight, June the first._"

Perdita

BY HILDEGARDE HAWTHORNE

I.--ALFALFA RANCH

Alfalfa Ranch, low, wide, with spreading verandas all overgrown by roses
and woodbine, and commanding on all sides a wide view of the rolling
alfalfa-fields, was a most bewitching place for a young couple to spend
the first few months of their married life. So Jack and I were naturally
much delighted when Aunt Agnes asked us to consider it our own for as
long as we chose. The ranch, in spite of its distance from the nearest
town, surrounded as it was by the prairies, and without a neighbor
within a three-mile radius, was yet luxuriously fitted with all the
modern conveniences. Aunt Agnes was a rich young widow, and had built
the place after her husband's death, intending to live there with her
child, to whom she transferred all the wealth of devotion she had
lavished on her husband. The child, however, had died when only three
years old, and Aunt Agnes, as soon as she recovered sufficient strength,
had left Alfalfa Ranch, intending never to visit the place again. All
this had happened nearly ten years ago, and the widow, relinquishing all
the advantages her youth and beauty, quite as much as her wealth, could
give her, had devoted herself to work amid the poor of New York.

At my wedding, which she heartily approved, and where to a greater
extent than ever before she cast off the almost morbid quietness which
had grown habitual with her, she seemed particularly anxious that Jack
and I should accept the loan of Alfalfa Ranch, apparently having an old
idea that the power of our happiness would somehow lift the cloud of
sorrow which, in her mind, brooded over the place. I had not been
strong, and Jack was overjoyed at such an opportunity