recollection--"We made our first essay in arms together. Has he never talked to you of Caspar the Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf?"

"Often, and with warm friendship. But he deemed you dead."

"I joined the campaign against the Turks, and lay dangerously wounded in Transylvania.----That is your son?" he asked, in sudden emotion; and lifting up the little Henry, he kissed him heartily--"His true eye betrays the father--."

He set the boy down again, and paced hastily up and down the room to collect himself.

"We are both too much agitated," he resumed, "to carry on this conversation any longer. Permit me now to deliver a letter to you, which your friend Sternberg, of Gitschin, requested me to take with me, when she understood that I was going to Schweidnitz."

"You know my Thekla, then?"

"We are near neighbours and good friends. My father lives at Tirschkokrig, not far from Gitschin, and I was frequently with the Sternberg family. The lady Thekla has talked so much of you, and so much in your praise, that I knew, before I saw, you."

"I doubt whether she has shown me truly, for friendship is a partial painter."

"Forgive me if I contradict you. Such, as you now stand before me, has your beautiful and friendly form long floated before my imagination."

Althea cast down her eyes in confusion; but the little Henry relieved her from the answer to this embarrassing discourse. He had grown as weary of the conversation as the two gaping nobles, and now began to twitch his mother's gown, and teaze for his evening meal; upon which she said, "Excuse me if I retire for a moment; I will but satisfy the little tormentor here, and read through my Thekla's letter, while, in the meantime, my brother-in-law, Netz, will be happy to grow more intimately acquainted with you. Hereafter I will at leisure welcome you to Schweidnitz, and you shall tell me all about our friends at Gitschin."

She left the room with her son. Tausdorf looked after for awhile, and then seemed lost in thought. After a short pause, Netz renewed the conversation by saying, "You are a native of Bohemia, then?"

Tausdorf courteously replied, "My father settled some years ago in the hereditary domains of Austria as an imperial feodatory. I have the honour to be a native of Silesia."

"Does any business call you back to your native land?" asked Netz, with increasing cordiality: "If I can serve you in any thing, you have only to say so; I know from my brother's own mouth that you were his very good friend."

"I thank you for your kind proffers. For the present I have only to commend myself to your neighbourly good-will, for I think of settling shortly in the vicinity of Schweidnitz."

"You will be heartily welcome to us, though you will find but sorry comfort now in this country."

Tausdorf was astonished.--"How so?"

"Oh, the burghers have got the upper hand of us nobles. Their wealth, their absurd privileges, have made them arrogant. A pitiful burgomaster of Schweidnitz will think himself greater than the emperor; and as to us, the whole mob of them look upon us with contempt. They need us not, they fear us not, and where they can do us any annoyance, they do it with delight."

"The purse-pride of the citizens is, no doubt, particularly disgusting; but to be candid, we should not too severely judge the industrious mechanic, the clever merchant, the dexterous artist, or the man of learning, even though the consciousness and the satisfaction of their hardly-earned property should lead them too far. Our pride of birth, when carried to excess, is also a hateful vice; and we have much less to advance in its defence, because that on which we pride ourselves is only inherited, and not earned. For the rest, I have always thought that in these eternal feuds between the nobles and the citizens, the wrong was to be found on both sides; the right is always in the middle, and both parties can attain it only by mutual forbearance."

"There you judge wrongly of these Silesian pedlers," exclaimed the wild Bieler: "If a noble were only to yield a finger to them, they would seize the whole man, and clap him into a pepper-bag. No, no, you must keep a tight hand over the people, and hardly let them breathe, or there will one day be an end of our old customs and sacred privileges."

"So thought the nobles before the unlucky war of the peasants," said Tausdorf, "and Germany was turned into a desert by it."

"Don't take it ill, Tausdorf," returned Netz; "in other respects you may be a brave knight; but if we were to follow your maxims, we should all be forced to fly the cities."

Tausdorf shrugged up his shoulders at their incorrigible stubbornness, when Rasselwitz burst into the room, his face glowing with rage, and asked furiously, "Is not Francis Friend here?"

"He was here a quarter of an hour ago," replied Netz; "perhaps you may yet find him at doctor Heidenreich's."

"I am in no humour to hunt after the rascal any longer," roared Rasselwitz. "This is the day whereon he promised to give up the horse to me. I have already beat up his quarters, but found him abroad, and the stable locked."

"He does not intend to give up the horse to you. He has openly and loudly declared as much here."

"We'll soon see that," cried Rasselwitz furiously. "I'll ask his wife for the stable-key, and if she refuses it, I'll break the door open, and fetch out the animal by force. Will you join me?"

"Of course," replied Netz and Bieler.

"And you, Herr von Tausdorf?" said Netz. "A brave companion like you, will you not run the hazard with us?"

"I do not like such disputes," replied Tausdorf, gravely: "they too often degenerate into frays, wherein more honour is to be lost than gained. Besides, it seems to me that the right is not on your side. If you really have any well-grounded pretensions to the horse, an appeal to the courts would be a better way of proceeding than this forcible violation of another's property, which sets you in the class of feud-makers and agitators."

"To the courts?" shouted Rasselwitz, with a wild laugh--"And the burgomaster is the father of the perjured rascal that I am to complain of! He would do me admirable justice, no doubt! No! no! we shall get on much better with our hands. Come, comrades; there's still enough of us for these pedlers."

They rushed out; and Tausdorf, shaking his head, exclaimed, "It is an evil spirit that is prevailing in this country."

After a short time Althea returned with her uncle, and presented the two guests to each other, when the old man said, "I have already heard so much worthy talk of you, Herr von Tausdorf, that I heartily rejoice in your more intimate acquaintance. You are in the imperial service?"

"Captain in the emperor's life-guard," replied Tausdorf, with military dignity.

"As the Frau von Sternberg informs my niece, you intend settling in our good Silesia. I am glad to hear it, and whatever I can do for you, either in act or counsel, I offer you with great sincerity; but it surprises me that you should think of leaving Bohemia. I understand you are in favour with the emperor, and, since the imperial diet at Prague has given independence to the protestants, it must be comfortable living for them in the Bohemian territory."

"This favour little profits us Utraquists. In reality the bull of Pius the Fourth is already recalled. Strict catholics still hold us for sectaries and half heretics: add to this, the new society of Jesuits already lifts up