m? A slight jingling caused him to turn
round; the sexton was coming out of the sacristy with his great bunch
of keys.

"You want to shut up the church, my friend?" he said. "I am going now."
Then as if he had thought of something he came back a few steps. "Who
was the young lady?" was on his lips to ask, but he could not bring it
out, he only gazed at the glowing colors in the painted glass of the
lofty window.

"They are very fine," said the sexton, "and are always much admired;
that one is dated 1511, the Exodus of the children of Israel, a gift
from the Abbess Anna from the castle up there. They say she had a great
liking for this church, and it is the finest church far and wide too,
our St. Benedict's."

Frank Linden nodded.

"You may be right," he said, abstractedly. Then he gave the man a small
sum for the baby and went away.

Soon after, his carriage was rolling away towards home. The outlines
of the mountains rose dark against the red evening sky, and the
church-tower of Niendorf came nearer and nearer.

Nothing seemed strange to him now as it had been this morning; the
first slight happy feeling of home-coming was growing in his heart. On
the top of the hill he turned again and looked back at the city, where
the castle looked to him like an old acquaintance, and hark! The faint
sound of a bell was wafted towards him on the evening breeze; perhaps
from St. Benedict's tower?

CHAPTER II.

Gertrude Baumhagen had quickly crossed the quiet square, had opened a
door in the opposite wall, and was at home. She passed rapidly through
the box-edged path of the old-fashioned garden, and across a quiet
spacious court into the house. In the large vaulted hall, she found her
brother-in-law standing beside a tall velocipede. He was dressed
elegantly and according to the latest fashion, a costly diamond
sparkled on the blue cravat, while he wore another on his white hand.
He was fair-haired, with pink cheeks, and a small moustache on his
upper lip, and was perhaps about thirty. A servant was occupied in
cleaning the shining steel of the bicycle with a piece of chamois
leather.

"Are you going for a ride, Arthur?" asked the young girl, pleasantly.

"I am going to make off, Gertrude," he replied, peevishly. "What on
earth can I do at home? Jenny has got a ladies' tea party again to-day
by way of variety--and what am I to do? I am going with Carl Roeben to
Bodenstadt--a man mus