With hardly a word of greeting, and without taking off his wet clothes, he sat down to the deal table and began to eat. His daughter was used to his moody ways; but she noticed that he was more silent than usual, and that he dashed the salt into his soup with an inconsiderate hand. "Thou art wet, Vaterle," she ventured to say. "Holy Jesus, what a night! Wert thou caught in the storm?"

"Yes-no," he answered abstractedly. "What saidst thou, child?" "Wert caught in the storm, Vaterle?"

"Why dost thou question me? I hate questioning. Peace!"

She finished her supper without appearing hurt at his roughness. Bäbele was not heartless, neither was the Burg-keeper without affection; but you perceive that they were not polished people, and did not vex themselves with over-much ceremony in the matter of intercourse. more remark she hazarded, apparently a misappropriate one.

One

"Just a year ago, this very day, Baron Karst came, father." The Burg-keeper glared upon her with the look of an angry bull. "Peace, I say. Is it not enough that all the devils of hell have been let loose to-night? Go to bed, girl, and sleep, if thou canst."

Poor Bäbele took up her lamp with somewhat of a crestfallen air, and went to her little bedroom. In five minutes she was fast asleep.

Perhaps every one would not have slept so soundly under the circumstances. The room had a strange prison-like smell in it, and was in reality one of the cells in which occasional spies or deserters were thrown during the time of war. Two rusty iron rings still hung from the walls to which the prisoners' hands used to be chained, and Bäbele's salmoncoloured petticoat and blue wimple, which now occupied them instead, fell into the shape of cowering human figures with attenuated outstretched arms. A cheerful little modern window, filled with flowers, was hidden in shadow, but two old apertures in the roof admitted a ghostly light, and between these a draught of wind made continual moaning.

Though Erslingen was quiet, the storm still raged beyond the hills, and sent whispers now and then to tell of its devastations there. These whispers called up all manner of unearthly echoes through the dreary old fortification. They howled fitfully among the trees on the hill-side, knocking their heads together with strange cracklings and blows. They blew a kind of war-trumpet from the bastion; they played hide-and-seek in the loopholes of the wall. In the cavern beneath the Burg-keeper's house they played the dreariest game of all. It was a chamber which had once been subterranean, but was now open on both sides, though both descent and entrance to it were almost choked up with mound and brier. Any one who did not object to a scratched face and to bruised hands might easily force his way through these, and would find that, after crawling a couple of yards on all-fours, the arched roof would give him room enough to stand up; perhaps his head would not touch the ceiling by six inches, and the arch was constructed at so obtuse an angle that he might take a few steps forward safely.

Standing there in the day-time, he would obtain just enough light to see that the ground beneath his feet was much frequented by lizards, and various black abominations, a matter easy to guess at from its clammy slimy feeling. The wall would appear to be of a dim grayish colour besmeared with green, and a damp miasma of unwholesome life and death would greet his nostrils.

Come out by all means, inquisitive stranger, and bring no particle of the black soil sticking to your feet.

Two or three hours passed, during which Bäbele slept as stolidly as a young heifer. All at once something in her dreams, or something palpably present to her senses, caused her to start up and look round her.

She heard a voice or voices proceeding from beneath. Were they in the little sitting-room? No; they were too muffled for that. Were they in the arched cavern? She listened attentively, and shuddered to find that they were there. If Bäbele had a detestation of any spot in the world,and Erslingen was the world to her, that spot was the cavern. When other children came up from the town to play hide and seek with her in her childhood, she would never consent to hiding in it, and once screamed herself into a fit from having been pushed in by some rough companions.

Frightened out of all her simple powers of thinking, she jumped from the bed and ran into the passage, without stopping to put any thing over her blue cotton nightgown. Her only thought was, that it must be somebody who had secreted himself there for the purpose of murdering herself or her father.

Her father's room was divided from her own by a narrow foot-bridge, built to supply the breakages of the wall, and exposed to the open air. She was too frightened, however, to feel the cold, and too frightened to scream when she had gained the Burg-keeper's chamber. She could only pass her hand over the bed with the intention of shaking him into consciousness, and call his name with terrified whispers.

What was her horror on finding that he was not there!

She felt then as if there was no safety but in some remote corner only known to herself. Her senses gathered themselves into a narrow focus in the space of a few seconds. The fear of death is a wonderful concen

tration of one's faculties.

Gliding like a cat, she recrossed the tiny bridge, passed by her own little room on the outer side, holding tight to the stone juttings, and finding a broad flat ledge behind the chimney, she crouched down.

No one could find her there, for no one else could feel their way in the dark as she had done; and her present most terrible fear the gone, poor child trembled, and wept noiselessly for thinking of her father.

By and by she dared to raise herself up a little. Peering over the edge of the chimney, she could just see the black arch of the cave, made blacker still by the straggling light of a lantern which issued from within. Through the rubbish heaps and confusion of bramble and nettle the light pricked distorted lines.

The whispers of the storm were hushed now. The sweet fruity air was only too clear a medium for any sound, and the voice she heard was neither low nor indistinct

"Blood-money-soul-money; keep it," the voice cried shrilly. "It burns my fingers, it sticks to me, it weighs down my soul, it eats into my heart. The money is red, I say, red with blood; let it go."

There was a chinking sound as of money suddenly dropped, a muttered curse, a half-suppressed shriek, then the pricks of light grew more vivid, and the noise of parting boughs and falling stones told her that the speaker was coming out.

A cold sweat broke over her face as she drew back hastily. She dared not think that it was her father; she dared not assure herself that it was he who had spoken; yet the voice was his. He was not in his bed; and, in spite of her former fears of murderers, she knew that the locked gate below the fortress rendered any ingress almost impossible.

What need to recount her terrors and surmises? It is enough for our purpose to say, that she imagined all kinds of improbable things, none of which brought her nearer to truth or nearer to comfort. At last, finding her blue-cotton camisole not the warmest apparel for a cold autumn night, especially sub dio on an elevated position, she crept back as she had come, and stole into bed.

"The money is red, I say, red with blood; let it go."

It would not go from her dreams. She could dream of nothing but money, and it was red money; it stuck to her fingers; it weighed her down the whole night long.

PART II.

THE SEEKING FOR IT.

THE morning was fair and breezy, as might be expected after such a storm. By five o'clock Bäbele was up and stirring; and though the event of the night, and the horrible nightmare that followed, were not things to be soon forgotten, she had too much upon her hands to be

otherwise than cheerful.

For so busy a day seldom came. The business was sociable too, requiring many helpers-just the business most suitable to mirth-loving gossiping Bäbele. Before six the helpers had come, namely, two broadshouldered ruddy-faced youths (on one of whom Bäbele looked with favourable eyes), and three red-armed light-haired maidens, very buxom and blithe, who wore their hair after the Suabian fashion in long pigtails behind, and were full of life and fun. They were soon ankle-deep in the wet grass, picking up the apples that had fallen during the night, in readiness for the great Most, or apple-wine making, which was to follow.

The south side of the Burg was one irregular hill and dale of orchard. Turn whichever way you choose, you will find yourself in some breakneck path between two deep fosses, thickly planted with the tree bearing that small ruby plum peculiar to this district; or on some inaccessible

pinnacle you have reached, and you will descend, you know not by what means, where you have just two feet of grass to stand upon and a splendid pear-tree behind, with no background to speak of; or you will dodge some old rambling wall till it brings you to a stand-still at the brink of a steep embankment studded with apple-trees; or you will follow the easy slopes which lead to the summer-house and the rows of benches where visitors sit on a Sunday, and are served by Bäbele and the Burg-keeper with bread, Swiss cheese, fruit, and wine. Here, on this sunny height, Bäbele and her fellow-workers took their breakfast of Wasser-Suppe and black bread, sitting on the ground like gipsies, and making the meal hilarious enough.

The tin basins were no sooner emptied than the work went on again. All the fruit was collected now, and the crushing commenced. For this purpose, the apples were placed in a narrow stone trough, over which a heavy wooden wheel was turned on a pivot by the men, the women's work being to remove the pulpy fruit, and replace it by fresh. The Burg-keeper did not join either in the work or in the talk that accompanied it, but looked on moodily. At eleven o'clock they took dinner. This meal was as frugal as the breakfast had been, and only differed in the larger amount consumed, and the addition of Bairisch beer. All at once Bäbele cried, "Look out towards the tower-bridge, father."

"Well, child, a carriage. What of that?"

"It is Baron Karst's carriage, Vaterle. I know it by the piebald horse."

The Burg-keeper jumped up, and shading his eyes, looked earnestly in the direction of the bridge. A look came over his face, which the merry most-makers did not see-a look as of a lightning-struck man. All soul and life seemed to flee from his face, leaving it scared and blank and ghastly.

Bäbele saw it and trembled. He turned away quickly, and walked towards the Burg.

"Didst say 'twas Baron Karst's carriage, Bäbele? Think you, he will come up here?" asked one of the youths.

"He came last year when he visited the town," answered the girl abstractedly.

"I would like to see him," continued the other. “A right noble gentleman he is. Why, they say he's like a prince in his own Schloss."

"I would rather see the pretty lady, his sister," said Bäbele's lover. "I wouldn't stir a step to see the greatest man alive, but I would walk a mile any day to see a face like hers, or-" he chucked Bäbele slily under the chin-"like thine."

Here the Burg-keeper returned quickly.

"Bäbele, Baron Karst and, and-" his voice shook with agitation. "They are here. Look you, girl, run to the tower and meet them; they are coming up the steps. Say I am busy; they do not want me." He took her place at the apple-trough;

and the girl ran towards the

Burg, casting off her serge apron, and wiping her heated face as she went. Two handsome graceful children sprang to meet her as she reached the head of the steps. Behind them followed the Baron and his sister.

She was very lovely. Why did her loveliness send a sharp pain to the beholder's heart? Nothing could be purer or more delicately moulded than her features; nothing could be fairer than her pale pinky complexion or golden hair; nothing sweeter or gentler than the smile of her lips, or the tone of her voice. Yet at the first glance of the sad blue eyes you shuddered, for the soul of them was wanting.

"Dearest Hildegarde," said the Baron, in the fondling tones that one would use to a sick child, "this is Bäbele, the Burg-keeper's little daughter, who always gives the children apples. You remember her, do you not?" She held out a timid shrinking hand to the blushing girl.

"There are only two children, Bäbele dear," she answered, with a voice of touching sadness; "but give them some fruit, please.” When they reached the summit, she relinquished the Baron's arm. "I may walk with Bäbele, may I not, Maurice? I like to see her shake down the apples; it used to delight Felix so."

He smiled assent, and she put her little delicately-gloved fingers upon Bäbele's plump red arm. The Baron accompanied them to the house in the Burg-tower, and then stopped, saying,

"Where is my old friend the Burg-keeper, Bäbele? Let him come to me, whilst you walk in the orchard with Lady Hildegarde and the children."

He looked so much like a king standing there, and there was so much of kingly authority in his courteous voice, that Bäbele had not the courage to deliver her message. What right had her father, or any one else, to refuse to see so noble a gentleman? With a deep curtsey she stammered out her obedience.

He might have been a king, the Baron Karst. Others than the rustic Bäbele felt abashed and mean before him. A handsome, winning, generous man, a man who would do no half-measures, give no beggarly gifts, commit no paltry sins, hurt no inferior creature without regal compensation. With men he was a Bayard, with women a very Louis Quatorze; 'twould be hard to tell who worshiped him most.

We follow Bäbele and Lady Hildegarde as they climb the mimic mountains leading to the summer-house; the children sporting before them. Every now and then Bäbele shook an apple- or plum-tree; then the poor lady laughed a sad strange laugh, and picked up some fruit. She never tasted any, but placed it carefully amid green leaves in a small basket she carried on her arm.

"Do eat an apricot, gracious lady," said Bäbele tenderly.

"No, I eat none; I carry all home for Felix; he is so fond of it." She said this over and over again, even when walking by herself, and lifted the lid of her basket once or twice to be assured that it was quite full. Homely and untaught though Bäbele was, she had tact