so pleasant that she will never want to
leave us."

"I shall do my best, your Highness," said the girl, with quiet
deference.

The Princess left the two alone together, and Jennie saw that Gretlich
was not the least ornamental appendage to the handsome suite of rooms.
Gretlich was an excellent example of that type of fair women for which
Vienna is noted; but she was, as the Princess had said, extremely
downcast, and Jennie, who had a deep sympathy for all who worked, spoke
kindly to the girl and endeavoured to cheer her. There was something of
unaccustomed tenderness in the compassionate tones of Jennie's voice
that touched the girl, for, after a brief and ineffectual effort at
self-control, she broke down and wept. To her pitying listener she
told her story. She had been betrothed to a soldier whose regiment was
stationed in the Burg. When last the girl saw her lover he was to be
that night on guard in the Treasury. Before morning a catastrophe of
some kind occurred. The girl did not know quite what had happened. Some
said there had been a dreadful explosion and her lover had lost his
life. Neither the soldier's relatives nor his betrothed were allowed to
see him after the disaster. He had been buried secretly, and it appeared
to be the intention of the authorities to avoid all publicity. The
relatives and the betrothed of the dead soldier had been warned to keep
silence and seek no further information. It was not till several days
after her lover's death that Gretlich, anxious because he did not keep
his appointment with her, and not hearing from him, fearing that he was
ill, began to make inquiries; then she received together the information
and the caution.

In the presence of death all consolers are futile, and Jennie realized
this as she endeavoured as well as she could to comfort the girl. Her
heart was so much enlisted in this that perhaps her intellect was the
less active; but here she stood on the very threshold of the secret she
had come to Vienna to discover, and yet had not the slightest suspicion
that the girl's tragedy and her own mission were interwoven. Jennie had
wondered at the stupidity of Cadbury Taylor, who failed to see what
seemed so plainly before him, yet here was Jennie herself come a
thousand miles, more or less, to obtain certain information, and here a
sobbing girl was narrating the very item of news that she had come so
far to learn--all of which would seem to show that none of us are s