unto that of angels, and this heart is wedded to the heavenly bridegroom. If only my Oswald Streicher had come from Berlin with a Christmas gift for her, whoever she may be, there would have been some fit ness in the thing.

But love discerns fitness, when passion is deaf and blind. With a heavy heart we turn to leave this little sanctuary, when the fair lady herself comes in softly at one door, and Bertha bounds in at the other, flushed and panting, wrapped to the ears in fur, and so covered with snow that she looks, except for her rosy cheeks, and sparkling eyes, just like the big snow-woman in the back yard.

"Aunt Hulda !"

"Bertha, my child!" and the quiet little figure is overwhelmed with an avalanche of kisses and snow.

"You have seen him then?"

"No, not I! I have wandered about Stubben Kammar for the last two hours, in all this tempest and gathering darkness, like the restless wraith of goddess Hertha, in search of an old worshipper at her shrine; but not a worshipper here, I fear, excepting a yellow-haired individual in a white neck-cloth, who fled precipitately at sight of me, without so much as bending the knee."

"But there were certainly four persons in Father Tresko's sleigh!"

"I cannot explain it, but I know the fourth person was not Max, or he would have come through fifty tempests worse than this, to meet me at the old tryst on Stubben Kammar. No, he will not come. It must be true, what Jean wrote from Berlin, a month ago. He said he had met there a young artist, calling himself August Von Kalb, who had suddenly become so famous by some religio-historical picture or other, that all the noblemen's houses and purses were open to him; that he was lionized to an extent unheard of in artist annals, and that he was no other than our poor Max Tresko of Gutskow!"

"All the more reason have you to expect him back to-night, if he has won the wealth and honor, for which papa Von Bülow stipulated five years ago."

know Jean said it was well known in Berlin, that August Von Kalb was betrothed to a beautiful golden-haired girl named Leonora Streicher, the orphan sister of a poor clergyman, and that she was his model for the Holy Virgin in the great picture ? What do you suppose such a lion would care for his boyish love affair with a country girl of Rugen! I shall never see my Max again, Aunt Hulda," and the poor child throws herself down upon the carpet, sobbing passionately.

Now Aunt Hulda removes the wet wrappings, and calms the disconsolate child as best she may.

"I cannot think Max would desert you thus," she says, "there is not a grain of fickleness in his whole composition. He is one of those rare natures to which only one love is possible. When you were playmates together at the village school he worshipped you, and was your willing little slave. As you grew older, and had better advantages than he, he forsook all rude comrades, gave up all pleasures in which youth delights, and devoted every spare moment to study and thought, that he might not be inferior to you. The good farmer almost impoverished himself that Max might go to the University, because Bertha Von Bülow could not be expected to wed an illiterate fellow, whatever Yetchen Holzel might have done in her time. Now what happens? Max graduates with the highest honors, and bears of three first prizes from his class. He asks your hand in betrothal. Papa Von Bülow feels insulted, and orders the presumptuous fellow to leave the house. You weep and storm, and threaten to go with him to the ends of the earth. Papa relents so far as to say that when Max Tresko has a name and a position in the world equal to your own, a home to give you as comfortable as the one you leave for him, with enough guilders in the bank to support you, why, then, it will be time seriously to consider the queston. Then Max draws himself up with the air of a true-born king, as he is, and demands a pledge.

"If I come to you in five years from tonight, with all you have required of worldly

is obliged to say yes, for he rather likes the noble fellow after all, but he stipulates that during those five years you shall not meet or in any way communicate with each other, and that you shall have the privilege of changing your mind, even at the last moment. Then Max kneels before you in the presence of the family and

swears:

"Bertha, if it pleases God, I shall come five years from to-night to claim this little hand as mine. Be patient, and trust in him."

"Then he goes away, no one knows where or how, not even his good father, or his lovely mother. And you trust in God, and wait patiently, and to-night is Christmas eve, five years. Do you think any golden-haired Streicher which Berlin ever produced, has power to keep Max from your side if he has been successful in gaining wealth, and fame? Don't believe it! Take heart again, my love. If Max was not the fourth person in the sleigh this afternoon, it was a messenger from him, you may be sure. And now make yourself ready to receive him."

O, my yellow-haired Streicher, if your could see the joyful changes flitting over that tearful face; if you could see the eagerness with which she accepts these words of hope, and the alacrity with which she obeys them, springing up and beginning her toilet at once; if you could see her pausing over this robe or that, uncertain which will most please her beloved Max, the white seeming all too tame and cold to express her feelings, the rose color all too bold a confession of her passion, the royal purple much too grand, the pale sea-green too suggestive of oceans depths, wherein are forever enshrouded many a lost lover, the exquisite sky-blue,-but that is Hulda's color, and here she comes gliding back in it, looking celestially, after a two-hours absence, and finds Miss Bertha still sitting undecided, before the pile of gay dresses, lost in happy dreams.

The white is finally chosen as most suitable for the occasion; and with a sprig of green, and a bunch of scarlet holly-berries in her abundant black hair, she looks

charming enough to turn the heads of halfa-dozen Doubles.

Already the house is full of guests. Everybody is here, with his wife, mother, brothers and sisters, uncles, aunts, and cousins; - everybody except the Holzels and the Treskos, as Bertha sees with a swift glance; and everybody seems in active preparation for his last journey, in accordance with the suggestion: "Except become as little children ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven."

Here are grave old patriarchs, with the snows of life's last winter floating around their brows, who seem once more to feel the stirring of spring in their veins, who, beneath the genial beaming of the Christmas sun, feel the frosts departing from the melting mould of their natures, and the sweet spring flowers of feeling bursting into bud!

Here are grandmothers, great-grandmothers, and great-great-grandmothers, who long ago outgrew the frail, unsatisfying toys of this life; yet to-night their aged hearts thrill as joyously as the six-year-old darling who dances down the hall in blissful anticipation of a doll with real hair.

Here are rich and poor, high and low, patrician and peasant, mingling together like members of one loving family, all social distinctions dissipated by His gentle, tender, merciful influence who was the poorest of the poor, meckest of the meek, and King of heaven and earth. Alas, that this holy influence should be all-powerful for one night only; that to-morrow morning, or next week at the farthest, the heel of the rich shall again fall on the neck of the poor, the war of mine and thine begin more furiously for this little breathing space! Alas, for us all, who have learned so little from His divine example who gave his only begotten son to die for us!

Nothing seems wanting to the joy of all, except the presence of dear pastor Holzel and his sister, good pachter Tresko's Yetchen, who are so universally honored that no entertainment is thought complete without them.

But they can delay opening the parlors no longer, and the wonderful Christmas-tree is now permitted to display its glories. The

children, young and old, are at the height of pleasurable excitement. Even Bertha forgets somewhat her bitter disappointment, and joins heartily in the general hilarity. The distribution of gifts is almost over when Pastor Holzel enters with a young man whom Hulda has no difficulty in recognizing as "the yellow-haired individual in the white neck-cloth" whom Bertha encountered on the Stubben Kammer. This individual, having been properly introduced to the elder members of the family, is at last seen to approach Miss Bertha who stands beside Aunt Hulda, pale and quivering with emotions which almost overpower her. It is only that soft little hand of Aunt Hulda's which sustains her during the dreadful moment of suspense.

Fortunately she does not hear his name, or all would have been over; but she sees his gentle smile, she hears his tender, sympathetic voice, she clasps his warm hand, and she interprets his manner to mean: "I have news from one who loves you."

But Hulda, who did hear his name, and reads quite a different story in his face, knows too well what the denoument will be, and means to postpone it as long as possible, carries him off to be introduced to some other important personages, and manages to keep them apart the whole evening with consummate tact.

Whatever Hulda may do with her guest she cannot prevent his eyes from following the beautiful Bertha apparently in an ecstacy of adoration. The sunlight behind those distant Cathedral windows glows with new intensity. The Double is almost too dazzling to look on, and his beauty has set more than one girlish heart aflame.

Now he goes to dinner with Frau Von Bülow on his arm. That she will have no difficulty in that direction, is very evident, as it is well known that the Frau's dearest desire is to see Bertha married to a minister. Herr Von Bülow will be somewhat harder to manage, though he is uncommonly courteous to the golden-haired stranger. It presently becomes evident to Hulda, who sits opposite and watches every movement with intense interest and anxiety, that the Frau and the odious Streicher are talking of

Bertha; that the Frau will take him to his child as soon as dinner is over, and that a catastrophe will result unless a bold move is made; so she makes it.

The moment dinner is over, before it is possible for Streicher to approach the object of his too evident admiration, Hulda astounds him by saying:

"I wish to speak with you concerning our mutual friend, August Von Kalb." And regardless of his apparent unwillingness, or the Frau's surprise, or Bertha's vexation, or the envy of all the female portion of Gutskow there present, she carries him off to a corner, and seats herself beside him in a most deter ined manner.

It is an awkward moment for her, nevertheless. Streicher has regained his composure, and sits looking at her with most provoking innocence and inquiry in his eyes; while she, with all that brilliant beauty focussed on her face, has utterly lost her self-possession. He turns away his eyes in consideration of her embarrassment, and says:

"You spoke of August Von Kalb; you know our famous artist, then?"

"I do not know," she says, after a pause, and her voice was strangely thin and tremulous, “I fear I do."

"Fear you do?" repeats the naughty Streicher, laughing. "Indeed, my friend would hardly think that complimentary!"

His tone and a glimpse of Bertha's face across the room growing whiter every moment, restores Aunt Hulda's calmness.

"I do not deal in compliments, my good sir," she says sternly, "I have to do with an unpleasant fact. I said fear, because if I do know August Von Kalb, and if you come here to-night as his messenger, it is a matter of life and death to at least one person in the house."

"Is it so desperate a case?"
"Just so desperate!"

Then follows a long story, in a tone so low that we can distinguish nothing.

Poor Bertha is all this time in agony. What has happened to everybody? Madame Tresko, who would gladly have stayed at home, but was not allowed, flies from Bertha as from contagion! The boys, who would

not have missed the tree and the dinner for any number of lost brothers, look on her with fear and dislike! Even Pastor Holzel avoids her, and will not give her a word alone, and hitherto they have all seemed so fond of her! Aunt Hulda is not to be come at either, since her talk with that odious, yellow-haired individual, whom Bertha thoroughly dislikes by this time, especially since she discovered him to be a twin brother of Leonora Streicher, who must indeed be beautiful if she at all resembles him, thinks Aunt Hulda.

Herr Von Bülow now approaches and aggravates her still farther by his goodnatured though cruel raillery.

"Where now is your peasant lover, Bertha? An' he come not soon, we shall have an old maid in the family, a thing which never before happened to the Von Bülows! You will soon be old and faded, and no one will want you. What think you? Could we not induce this young Streicher to carry you off? Disappointed love is said to transform gay and frisky young girls into saints, for example your Aunt Hulda. And that's what a minister wants in a wife! If young Streicher proposes, shall I accept him, eh? Young girls mustn't be too chary, who get a slip from a peasant lad, you know!"

"Peasant or prince matters nothing to me, father, for I love him; and since you are to blame for my loss of him, you deserve the infliction of an old maid," she replies in the same light tone, though her heart seems ready to break. "However, if your Streicher proposes, let him draw lots which of the disappointed saints he will take, though from such a fate, good Lord deliver us!"

The company now begins to disperse; most of the guests departing, except the intimate friends of the family. And now comes the Yule-Clap, an institution peculiar to Mother Germany. The elder members of the family have as yet received no presents, the gifts on and about the tree being for the children and the poor.

Suddenly the street door opens, a loud voice cries, Yule-Clap! Everybody rushes into the hall to examine the package or packages, and a merry time they have over

them, for sometimes an immense parcel will be composed of myriad layers of wrapping paper, each one addressed to a different person, and so the bundle goes from one hand to another until the last wrapper is torn off, and the rightful owner gets his property, amid the merriment of the crowd!

But to-night, if the Yule Claps are many or few, worthless or precious, Bertha neither knows or cares. She seems suddenly to have lost all interest in life, and goes about so white and sad, that it almost makes one weep to see her. She has given up the hope of any message from Max by way of Streicher. He, disagreeable person, has only come down to see how she takes the desertion, and report to Max and his model of a Madonna. He shall not see her drooping and dying like Mariana in the moated grange. She will mask her woe with smiles, as many a brave woman has done and will do until the end of time.

She becomes feverishly gay as the night wanes; astounds the company by her brilliant sallies, her repartees; enchants everybody, especially Streicher, with her marvellous singing, bewitches them with her fairy-like dances, and becomes as usual the observed of all observers.

Then another reaction takes place. She is suddenly attacked with a fever of expectation, though she knows it is sheer madness, though every vestige of hope has been swept away. She starts forward eagerly at every Yule-Clap, as though it were possible he might be concealed within those little paper parcels. She has forgotten the Streicher entirely or she would have seen that he too is in a fever of excitement; and strangely enough, Aunt Hulda is suffering from a serious attack of the same, judging from her shining eyes, restless manner, and the unusual glow upon her fair cheeks.

Indeed, the whole company seem impressed with the idea that something is going to happen. For a full minute after the last Yule-Clap is disposed of, a minute which seems an eternity to Bertha, Streicher, and Hulda, there is a perfect silence in the house, a hush like that on board a fated ship, just before it strikes the breakers. Each one involuntarily holds

his breath, and then the front door opens. Four men enter silently, bearing on their shoulders a huge barrel, which they deposit in the middle of the room, and as silently go away. All rush forward to see, except those most interested, and a dozen voices cry out the inscription: "Yule-Clap. For Bertha Von Bülow." The poor girl is transfixed with amazement. Aunt Hulda is at her side, holding her about the waist and bidding her to be brave, heroic, to prepare for a great shock, and so ward off a little longer the catastrophe.

A hatchet is brought, and papa is just about to knock in the head of this mysterious barrel, when Pastor Oswald Streicher steps forward lays his slender hand upon it, and thus speaks, in a voice tremulous with emotion:

"By your leave, my honorable host, I will first deliver to your daughter a message which was entrusted to me by the donor of the gift.

"Fair lady, five years ago to-night, a poor but worthy lover knelt at your feet, and pledged you his eternal constancy and love. You were separated from him by wealth and social distinction; nor until these were won by him, could he hope to claim your hand. Five years of ceaseless toil, though they may have made his name immortal, have yet failed to bestow that wealth without which, he can never hope to possess your hand; for though 'Man will not let him die of hunger, to whom the gods have given the kiss of immortality,' that generosity is rarely extended to his wife and children. Knowing, therefore, that his presence here to-night, could end only in a second rejection, more bitter than the first, since Max Tresko, better known to the world as the famous August Von Kalb, in reality is still a poor peasant, he empowers me to release you from any girlish promises you may have been keeping sacredly all these years, and asks only that you be permitted to accept this YuleClap at his bands as a slight token of his remembrance and regard."

On the breakers at last. But Bertha is not the girl to faint or fail now. Though she may have trembled and paled, and wept and prayed and agonized, while she

only feared the worst, now that the crisis is upon her she is calm and heroic. With a serene smile, and a tone of subdued sweetness, which lifts her immeasurably above her former place in our regard, she advances and lays her hand upon his gift, saying:

"My father knows it is a custom religiously observed in Rugen, never to refuse a Yule-Clap, no matter what its contents or who its giver nevertheless, I ask him humbly if I may be permitted to receive this parting gift from one who must be as dear to me an hundred years hence as now, whatever his fate or mine."

Papa Von Bülow is in a rage, however, and will not listen to reason.

"What does the villain mean?" he cries. "To refuse my daughter in this manner, is an insult not to be borne by a Von Bülow! Why, the senseless fellow might have known I was but putting him on his mettle, testing his worth and the constancy of his youthful passion! Idiot! Have I not wealth enough to keep all my children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren from starvation without calling upon the generosity of this sordid world? Does the fellow think I am incapable of recognizing the king, because he disguises himself, or is disguised by circumstances, in a peasant's coat? Tush! you may trot your YuleClap back to Berlin, Master Streicher, and tell Max Tresko when he has a worthy present to bestow upon my daughter, he must bring it himself, to insure acceptance.”

Wonder of wonders! The inoffensive barrel begins to quiver all over with longsuppressed feelings. It is literally bursting with righteous indignation, and suddenly the staves fall apart, revealing—Max himself!

Bertha is just the girl to taint now, when the crisis is past, and she does it gracefully and comfortably on the breast of the famous Von Kalb, formerly Tresko, who is as noble a specimen of manhood as one could find by sifting the whole population of Germany, or any other country, for that matter. ducal coronet is needed on that brow, it bears the sign of God's own nobleman.

No

The good pachter was let into the secret an hour ago, and now stands here, thrilling