a consumptive tendency and
might look for a premature interment. She even had fixed on the spot
where she should lie: the violets grew there, she said, the river went
moaning by; the gray willow whispered sadly over her head, and her heart
pined to be at rest. "Mother," she would say, turning to her parent,
"promise me--promise me to lay me in that spot when the parting hour has
come!" At which Madame de Schlippenschlopp would shriek, and grasp her
in her arms; and at which, I confess, I would myself blubber like a
child. She had six darling friends at school, and every courier from
Kalbsbraten carried off whole reams of her letter-paper.

In Kalbsbraten, as in every other German town, there are a vast number
of literary characters, of whom our young friend quickly became the
chief. They set up a literary journal, which appeared once a week, upon
light-blue or primrose paper, and which, in compliment to the lovely
Ottilia's maternal name, was called the Kartoffelnkranz. Here are a
couple of her ballads extracted from the Kranz, and by far the most
cheerful specimen of her style. For in her songs she never would
willingly let off the heroines without a suicide or a consumption.
She never would hear of such a thing as a happy marriage, and had an
appetite for grief quite amazing in so young a person. As for her dying
and desiring to be buried under the willow-tree, of which the first
ballad is the subject, though I believed the story then, I have at
present some doubts about it. For, since the publication of my Memoirs,
I have been thrown much into the society of literary persons (who admire
my style hugely), and egad! though some of them are dismal enough in
their works, I find them in their persons the least sentimental class
that ever a gentleman fell in with.

"THE WILLOW-TREE.

"Know ye the willow-tree
Whose gray leaves quiver,
Whispering gloomily
To yon pale river?
Lady, at even-tide
Wander not near it,
They say its branches hide
A sad, lost spirit!

"Once to the willow-tree
A maid came fearful,
Pale seemed her cheek to be,
Her blue eye tearful;
Soon as she saw the tree,
Her step moved fleeter,
No one was there--ah me!
No one to meet her!

"Quick beat her heart to hear
The far bell's chime
Toll from the chapel-tower
The trysting time:
But the red sun went down
I