were beginning to bloom. Cheerful industry reigned throughout the village. The Baron indeed complained of the failure of the harvest, but this he did of every harvest the proceeds of which were insufficient to cover the interest of his numerous debts: the peasantry, who by no means exacted so high a rate of profit from their meadows and pasture-lands, were happy and content, and the stubble-fields were already dotted with hayricks.

Outside in the garden a little girl in a worn and faded frock was playing funeral: she was interring her canary, which she had found dead in its cage. She was very sad: the bird had been her best friend. No one paid her any attention. Her mother was away, and the Englishwoman whose duty it was to superintend her education was just now occupied in company with the bailiff, an ambitious young man desirous of improving his knowledge of languages, in studying the working of a new mowing-machine. From time to time the child glanced through the open door of the principal entrance to the castle into a rather bare hall, its floor paved with red tiles and its high vaulted walls whitewashed and adorned with stags' horns of all sizes. The Baron von Strachinsky had bought these last in one lot at an auction, but he had long cherished the conviction that they all came from his forest. He had a decided taste for fine, high-sounding expressions, always designating his wood as his 'forest,' his estate as his 'domain,' and his garden as his 'park.'

A charwoman with a flat, red, perspiring face, and a knot of thin bristling hair at the back of her head, from which her yellow cotton kerchief had slipped down upon her neck, was shuffling upon hands and knees, her high kilted skirts leaving her red legs quite bare, over the tiles of the hall, rubbing away at the dirt and footmarks with a wisp of straw, while the steam of hot soapy water rose from the wooden bucket beside her.

The little girl outside had just planted a row of pink asters upon the grave, which she had dug with a pewter spoon, and had filled up duly, when the scratching of the wisp of straw suddenly ceased.

A young fellow was standing in the hall,--very young, scarcely sixteen, and with a portfolio under his arm. His garb was that of a journeyman mechanic, but his bearing had in it something of distinction, and his face was delicately modelled, very pale, with large dark eyes, almost black, gleaming below the brown curls of his hair. The same class of countenance is frequently seen among the Neapolitan boys who sell Seville oranges in Rome; but such eyes as this lad had are seen at most only two or three times in a lifetime.

The child in the garden looked with evident satisfaction at the young fellow. Apparently he had come into the castle through the back entrance,--the one used by servants and beggars.

The charwoman wiped her red hands upon her apron and knocked at one of the doors opening into the hall. She was a new-comer, and did not know that the Baron von Strachinsky was never disturbed upon any ordinary pretext.

She knocked several times. At last a sleepy, ill-humoured voice said, "What is it?"

"Your Grace, a young gentleman: he wants to speak to your Grace."

With eyes but half open, and the pattern of the embroidered cushion upon which he had been sleeping stamped upon his cheek, the Baron von Strachinsky came out into the hall.

He was of middle height; his face had once been handsome, but was now red and bloated with excessive good living; he was slightly bald, and wore thick brown side-whiskers. His dress was a combination of slovenliness and foppery. He wore scarlet Turkish slippers, trodden down at heel, gray trousers, and a soiled dark-blue smoking-jacket with red facings and buttons.

"What do you want?" he roared, in a rage at being disturbed for so slight a cause.

The young fellow shrank from him, murmuring in a hoarse, tremulous voice, the voice of a very young man growing fast and but scantily nourished, "I am on my way home."

"What's that to me?" Strachinsky thundered, not without some excuse for his indignation.

The youth flushed scarlet. Shyly and awkwardly he held out his portfolio to the sleepy Baron. Evidently it contained drawings, which he would like to sell but had not the courage to show.

"Give him an alms!" Herr von Strachinsky shouted to the cook, who, hearing the noise, had hurried into the hall; then, turning to the scrubbing-woman, who was standing beside her steaming bucket, her toothless jaws wide open in dismay, he went on: "If you ever again dare for the sake of a wretched vagabond of a house-painter's apprentice to deprive me of the few moments of repose which I contrive to snatch from my wretched and tormented existence, I'll dismiss you on the spot!" With which he retired to his room, banging to the door behind him.

The cook offered the lad two kreutzers. His hand--a long, slender, boyish hand, almost transparent--shook, as he angrily threw the money upon the floor and departed.

The little girl in the garden had been watching the scene attentively. Her delicate frame trembled with indignation, as she rose, and, with arms hanging at her sides and small fists clinched in a somewhat dramatic attitude, fixed her eyes upon the door behind which the Baron had disappeared. She had very bright eyes for a child of nine years, and a very penetrating glance, a glance by no means friendly to the Baron. Thus she stood for a minute gazing at the door, then put her arms akimbo, frowned, and reflected. Before long she shrugged her shoulders with an air of precocious intelligence, deserted the newly-made grave, and hurried into the house, and to the pantry.

The door was open. She looked about her. By strict orders of the Baron, in his wife's absence all remains of provisions were hoarded in the pantry, although they were seldom of any use. As a consequence of this sordid housekeeping the child found a great store of dishes and bowls filled with scraps of meat and fish, stale cakes, and fermenting stewed apricots. It took her some time to discover what satisfied her,--a cold roast pheasant, and some pieces of tempting almond-cake left over from the last meal. These she packed in a basket with a flask of wine that had been opened, a tumbler, knife and fork, and a clean napkin. She decorated the basket with pink asters, and hurried out of the back door, intent upon playing the part of beneficent fairy.

Deep down in her heart there was a vein of romance which contrasted oddly with the keen good sense already gleaming in her bright childish eyes.

She ran until she was quite out of breath, searching vainly for her handsome vagabond. Should she inquire of some one if a young man with a portfolio under his arm had passed along the road? Her heart beat; she felt a little shy. From a distance the warm summer breeze wafted towards her the notes of a foreign air clearly whistled, and she directed her steps towards the spot whence it seemed to proceed.

There! yes, there----

Beside the road rippled a little brook on its way to the rushing stream beyond the village, a brook so narrow that a twelve-year-old school-boy could easily have jumped across it. Nevertheless the Baron von Strachinsky had thought best to span it with a magnificent three-arched stone bridge. In the shade thrown by this monumental structure, for the erection of which the Baron had vainly hoped to be decorated by his sovereign, the lad was crouching. He was even paler than before, and there were traces of tears on his cheeks, but all the same he whistled on with forced gaiety, as one does whistle when one has nothing to eat and hopes to forget his hunger.

The little girl felt like crying. He