apparently offended, and did not answer my letter for a month. Then he was seized with a longing for--for the child. He alighted in the midst of our solitude like a bomb at Sevastopol. Of course we were charmed to see him, and he was so delighted with Erlach Court that he was quite ready to turn his back on the service. I, however, do not approve of hasty decisions, and so I advised him to postpone his change of vocations----"

"His resignation of a vocation," Baron Rohritz interpolated.

"What a hair-splitting humour you are in today!" Katrine rejoined, with a shrug, "to postpone for a while his resignation, if that pleases you. So he obtained leave of absence for a year. Hm!--I am afraid he is beginning to be bored. I cannot understand it. You must admit that we are charmingly situated here."

"Indeed you are."

"The estate is in good order," Katrine went on, "and we have no neighbours."

"A great advantage."

"So it seems to me. One of the most disagreeable sides of an army life was always, in my opinion, the being forced into association with so many unpleasant people. Most of my husband's comrades were very agreeable, unusually kindly, pleasant men, but to be forced to accept them all, and their wives into the bargain without liberty to show any preference,--it was simply odious. I am a fanatic for solitude; the usual human being I dislike; but you cannot throw everybody over, however you may desire to do so,"--with a glance over her shoulder towards Stasy and the general. "I beg you will make no application to yourself of my remark."

"Much obliged." Rohritz bowed. "I confess I began----"

"No need of fine phrases," Katrine interrupted him. "You know I like you. And in proof of it--you may have heard that we want to pass the winter here; it will be delightful! entirely lonely,--shut off from civilization by a wall of snow,--Christmas in the country,--the children from three villages to provide with gifts,--the castle quite empty, except for our three selves and Freddy! Well, in proof of my genuine friendship I invite you to share with us this charming solitude. Will you come? Say you will." Dropping her work in her lap, she offers him both her hands.

"A curious creature! She treats me like an aged man, and moreover considers herself sufficiently elderly to dispense with caution in her intercourse with the other sex. An odd illusion for a woman still extremely pretty," Rohritz thinks; and, occupied with these reflections, he does not immediately reply.

"You decline?" she asks, merrily. "I shall not throw away such an invitation upon you a second time."

"They are coming! they are coming!" Stasy exclaims, clapping her hands childishly and tripping to and fro in much excitement.

"I do not hear the carriage," Katrine rejoins, looking at her watch. "Besides, it is not time for them yet."

"But I hear something in the avenue---- Ah, please come, dear Edgar," Stasy entreats.

Rohritz does not stir.

"Baron Rohritz!" in an imploring tone.

"What can I do for you, Fräulein Stasy?"

"Your opera-glass--be quick!" And, while Rohritz reluctantly rises to go for the desired optical aid, Stasy lisps, "Not at all over-polite; quite like a brother: just what I enjoy."

"It is they," Katrine exclaims. "The carriage is just turning into the avenue. Let me have it for a moment,"--taking from his hand the glass which Rohritz has just brought. "Yes, now I see them quite distinctly."

A few minutes later the rattle of approaching wheels is heard. The two ladies and the general hasten down to receive the guests. Rohritz discreetly withdraws to his apartment, and from behind his half-drawn curtains watches the arrival. The carriage stops, the captain springs out to aid two ladies to alight. At first Rohritz hears nothing but a hubbub of glad voices, sees nothing but a confused group, the general standing on one side with a polite grin on his face, and Freddy giving vent to his joyous excitement by performing a war-dance around the party.

When the situation at last becomes clear, he perceives a very handsome old lady in a close black travelling-hat, a pair of blue spectacles shielding her eyes from the dust, and wearing a dust-cloak which may once have been black, while beside her--he adjusts his eye-glass in his eye--assuredly Stella does not remind him of the 'hysterical tree-frog' of frightful memory, but of some one else, for the life of him he cannot remember whom. He looks and looks, sees two serious dark eyes in a gentle childlike face beneath the broad brim of a Kate-Greenaway hat, a half-wayward, half-shy smile, charming dimples appearing by turns in the cheeks and at the corners of the mouth, a delicately-chiselled nose, a very short and rather haughty upper lip, beneath which gleam rows of pearly teeth, and for the rest, the figure of a sylph, rather tall, still a little too thin, and with a foot peeping from beneath her skirt that Taglioni might covet.

He looks and looks. No, Stella certainly does not remind him of the 'hysterical tree-frog,' but as certainly she recalls to his mind something, some one--who is it? who can it be?

An unpleasant surmise occurs to him, but before it can take actual shape in his brain the impetuous entrance of the captain has banished it.

"Come to the drawing-room, Rohritz, and be presented to the ladies," he calls out. "By the way, what means this wretched idea of which Stasy informs me? She says that you are going back to Grätz immediately."

"The fact is, my lawyer has summoned me," Rohritz replies; "but--hm!--I fancy the matter can be settled by letter. At any rate, I will try to have it so disposed of."

"Bravo!"

CHAPTER IV.

STELLA.

Freddy has been terribly disappointed; instead of the bonbonnière, the snap-pistol, or the storybook, among which three articles he has allowed his expectant imagination to rove, his aunt has brought him Sanders's German Dictionary.

"I hope you will like it," Stella remarks, with emphasis, depositing the voluminous gift upon the school-room table. "We had to pay for at least five pounds of extra weight of luggage in the monster's behalf, and moreover it has crushed flat my only new summer hat. 'Tis a great pity."

Freddy, who, although hitherto rather puny and delicate in body, is mentally, thanks to clever qualities inherited from both his parents, far in advance of his age, and already thinks Voss's translation of the Odyssey entertaining, turns over the leaves of the three volumes of the Dictionary without finding them attractive.

"I put in a good word for the child," Stella says, with a laugh, to the captain, who with his friend Rohritz happens to be in Freddy's school-room, "but mamma insists that it is of no consequence; if it does not please him now, it will be very useful to him in future. Never mind, my darling," she adds, turning to her little cousin, who, with a sigh and not without much physical effort, is putting the colossal Sanders on his bookshelves; "it certainly presents an imposing spectacle, and I have a foolish thing for your birthday, the very finest my limited means could afford." As she speaks she strokes the little fellow's brown curls affectionately.

"Stella, Stella, where are you loitering?" a deep voice calls at this moment, and the girl replies,--