side from the branches where he had been
crouched like a lynx waiting for its prey. At first she did not mind it
much, for she looked upon it as a new form of his silly practical
joking, and so she only laughed and talked to him about some indifferent
subject; but she soon discovered that a very remarkable change had taken
place in him. He spoke gravely and solemnly and uttered the merest
nothings as if they had been the weightiest affairs of state. He passed
his hand meditatively across his forehead as if immersed in profound
thought, and when she spoke of the weather, he laid his hand upon his
heart as if he were suffering from a sudden pain in the side. When she
asked him to come to Guerlitz he shook his head sadly, and said: Honor
forbade him to do so. When she asked him about her father, his words
poured forth like a swiftly flowing stream: The bailiff was an angel;
there never was, and never would be such a man again on the face of the
earth; _his_ father was good and kind, but _hers_ was the prince of
fathers. When she asked after Miss Fidelia, he said: He never troubled
himself about women, and was utterly indifferent to _almost_ all of
them; but once when, as ill luck would have it, she asked him about
Frank, his eyes flashed and he shouted "Ha!" once or twice with a sort
of snort, laughed scornfully, caught hold of her hand, slipped a bit of
paper into it, and plunged head foremost into the rye-field, where he
was soon lost to sight. When she opened the paper she found that it
contained the following effusion:

TO HER.

"When with tender Silvery light
Luna peeps the clouds between,
And 'spite of dark disastrous night
The radiant sun is also seen
When the wavelets murmuring flow
When oak and ivy clinging grow,
Then, O then, in that witching hour
Let us meet _in my_ lady's bow'r.

"Where'er thy joyous step doth go
Love waits upon thee ever,
The spring-flow'rs in my hat do show
I'll cease to love thee never.
When thou'rt gone from out my sight
Vanished is my sole delight,
_Alas!_ Thou ne'er canst understand
What I've suffered at thy hand.

"My _vengeance_ dire! will fall on him,
The foe who has hurt me sore,
Hurt _me!_ who writes this poem here;
_Revenge!!_ I'll seek for evermore.

FREDERIC TRIDDELFITZ.
_Puempelhagen, July 3d, 1842._"

The first time that Louisa read this effusion she could make