g
treasures, but seeking after those which are eternal; a people whose
life will be to observe, to comprehend, and to adore, revering their
Creator in spirit and in truth. Then comes the day of which the angels
sung 'Peace on earth!'"

"Peace on earth!" repeated Jeremias in a slow and melancholy voice,
"when comes it? It must first enter into the human heart; and there,
there live so many demons, so much disquiet and painful longing--but
what--what is amiss now?"

"Ah, my God!" exclaimed Petrea wildly, "she lives! she lives!"

"What her? who lives? No, really Petrea all is not right with you," said
the Assessor, rising.

"See! see!" cried Petrea, trembling with emotion, and showing to the
Assessor a torn piece of paper, "see, this lay in the book!"

"Well, what then? It is indeed torn from a sepia picture--a hand
strewing roses on a grave, I believe. Have I not seen this somewhere
already?"

"Yes, certainly; yes, certainly! It is the girl by the rose-bush which
I, as a child, gave to Sara! Sara lives! see, here has she written!"

The back of the picture seemed to have been scrawled over by a child's
hand; but in one vacant spot stood these words, in Sara's own remarkably
beautiful handwriting:

No rose on Sara's grave!
Oh Petrea! if thou knew'st----

The sentence was unfinished, whilst several drops seemed to prove that
it had been closed by tears.

"Extraordinary!" said the Assessor: "these books which I purchased
yesterday were bought in U. Could she be there? But----"

"Certainly! certainly she is there," exclaimed Petrea, "look at the book
in which the picture lay--see, on the first page is the name, Sara
Schwartz--although it has been erased. Oh! certainly she is in U., or
there we can obtain intelligence of her! Oh, Sara, my poor Sara! She
lives, but perhaps in want, in sorrow! I will be with her to-day if she
be in U.!"

"That Miss Petrea will hardly manage," said the Assessor, "unless she
can fly. It is one hundred and two (English) miles from here to U."

"Alas, that my father should at this time be absent, should have the
carriage with him; otherwise he would have gone with me! But he has an
old chaise, I will take it----"

"Very pretty, indeed," returned he, "for a lady to be travelling alone
in an old chaise, especially when the roads are spoiled with rain;--and
see what masses of clouds are coming up with the south wind--you'll have
soaking rain the whole day through in the chaise