contrasted oddly with the well-dressed men and women about. They could hardly be said to be in rags—their picturesque costume prevented that-but about the bright, fantastic garb hovered an unmistakable air of poverty. They were tired and way-worn. The woman walked with difficulty, bowed down as she was with the weight of an infant on her back, a child at one hand, and a violin in the other. Her sickly-looking husband could hardly carry the harp that was slung across his shoulder. The tourists looked up with interest, and some young students resigned their chairs; for there were no longer any unoccupied seats. When they had recovered breath, they thanked them. The language was German, but it had an outlandish ring. Presently the host, to whom they seemed known, approached, bringing beer and black bread.

‘Eat and drink, good people, and be welcome,' said he. 'It is your first visit this summer.

am sorry to see you still looking so thin.'

Morgana, I

Thinner and weaker,' said the man sadly.

'Ah, but the summer will do him good,' replied the woman, trying to look hopeful. 'Shall we play something?' she asked the host, in a quick, nervous manner, as though she wanted to change the conversation.

'Ay, do, when you are rested; and may be many

a good penny will drop into your hats.'

He patted the little one's head as he spoke, and then walked to the different tables, inquiring after the comfort of his guests, and praising the music of the gipsies.

Presently they began to play a fantastic duet of harp and violin. Then the woman sang, in a thin, true voice, some plaintive, yearning song, to which her husband accompanied her softly. The company listened and applauded.

'Let the little one dance, Menetta,' said the husband. The woman clapped her hands, as a signal to the child to come to her, and did not till that moment perceive that the little girl had wandered away.

'Where is Beruna?' she cried anxiously. 'Host, have you seen the child?'

'A while ago she passed the kitchen door,' he said. 'I have not seen her since.'

'Stay here, my friend,' said the woman to her husband, giving him the baby. 'I will go and seek her.'

'But you are weary,' he said, and he tried to rise from his seat, and go in her stead.

'Not so weary as you,' she answered, gently pushing him back into the chair, and in a moment she had flown down the path indicated.

The baby fell asleep. Morgana laid it upon the soft grass, and went round among the tourists to collect

a few pence. The company broke up one by onesome to go back to the city, some to go farther into the hills. The day darkened; the moon was beginning to rise, and still neither the woman nor the child returned. The man grew restless; he threw away the pipe he had been smoking, and touched the chords of his instrument nervously. Then he rose, and looked down the path. There was no sign of any one. The host begged Morgana to enter the house : the dew was falling heavily, and a hard cough shook his frame. At first he refused; but yielded at last. It was nearly night when the woman came back alone. Her eyes were red with weeping, her face and mien told all, words were not needed-she had not found the child.

The parents' misery was unspeakable. It was well that they had found so kind a host to give them shelter and food; they could not have sought for it that night. Exhausted with misery and weariness, they fell asleep.

Meanwhile, their little girl was safe, and had found kind friends. Led away, first by curiosity, and then by some pretty flowers she saw in the distance and was eager to pluck, the child had almost unconsciously strayed down the hill on the Bohemian side, and with the love of wandering implanted in her race, had gone

on and on, heedless that she ought to return to her parents, until the night began to fall, and she at length grew aware that she was hungry and very, very weary. Till then the pretty scenery and the grand majestic rocks she had passed had kept her too interested to think of these things. Despair crept

into her little heart, and she sat down by a stone at the road-side, and began to weep bitterly.

At that moment a young boy passed along. Hearing sobs, he looked to see whence they came. When he beheld the little girl in her bright fantastic dress,

he went up to her, and asked kindly what was the matter. She told him her grief, and indicated the way she had come.

'From the Winterberg, no doubt,' he said. 'It is too late to take thee back now. Come home with me, and I will ask my father what I can do for thee.'

The girl obeyed silently. She was only too glad to have the control of her actions taken from her. Neither of the children spoke a word. The boy was thoughtful, and wondered whether his grandmother would scold at his bringing a strange little girl home : his father would not be angry he knew. Beruna was too tired to speak only once she murmured

No, that she would not allow. Only little children were carried,' she said.

The boy smiled down at the girl who trotted beside him, holding his hand. She could not be more than seven years old, he thought.

'Here we are,' said Fritz at last, as they came to a halt before a good-sized house. It was built of crossed beams, filled up with white-washed clay, and there seemed as much window as wall about it. The lattices opened flush with the outside, and were fastened back with hooks. Some of them were open, and even