arms, and encircled tiny waists; there were two heads powdered as white as any snow-wreath, overtopped by a mass of nodding snow-drops: besides these there were magnolias, violets, and many others, formed according to the character of the flowers into very tasteful, though somewhat large head-dresses, and otherwise decorating the attire of the

wearer.

Considering the native wit of a "fool," the king appeared somewhat foolish, in the ordinary sense of the word, and most horribly perplexed did he contrive to look, being all the time mocked and jeered at unmercifully by his wicked subjects they uttered unearthly shrieks, and, as further signs of impatience, flapped their wooden clappers with a perfectly stunning din.

At length the king arose, saying that he believed he could now guess their riddle: Was not the Edelweiss the fairest and rarest flower that grew? And instantly, as if impelled by a magical impulse, at one bound, making their thousand bells dance and ring, the Fools sprang to their feet upon their stages, and sang,

"Wie im Alpen Rosen Kranz
Edelweiss vom Felsenthrone,
Also in des Festes Glanz

Strahlet als der Frauen Krone,
Leuchtet als die Herrscherin,
Bayerns holde Königin !"

As 'mid Alpine flowers and snow,
Rock-throned Edelweiss is beaming,

So amid the festal show,

As the crown of noble women,

As the monarch, is she seen

Our Bavaria's gentle queen!

The pretty little queen, seated beneath her crimson velvet canopies, appeared quite affected, and almost ready to weep.

VOL. II.

King Ludwig, who sat beside her, clapped his hands, and smiled, and bowed, and seemed most highly delighted. The young Queen wore in her tiara of diamonds a sprinkling of Edelweiss, which at a distance produced the effect of pearls. This secret of the royal toilette had evidently been betrayed beforehand to the fools. The lines are said to be the composition of the Painter Teichlein; the music was by Baron Perfall-the handsome Musical Director of last year's Artists' Ball."

CHAPTER XXI.

SPRING PICTURES.

THIS last week has been Passion-week; and as usual all Munich was rushing from church to church: but this year I did not rush with them-I only went to two churches with Isabel, when she had no other companion.

This year, someway, all looked faded and weariful to me. The only thing that I saw which I did not see last spring was a group of peasants in the Basilica, kissing the wounds of a frightful crucifix, which was laid upon the altar steps. Never was anything more disgusting.

This morning I went with Isabel to hear high mass performed in the Hof-Kapelle, as the music is very fine there on Easter Sunday. The robes of the priest, all gold, rosecolour and green, were beautiful; and the troop of elegant court pages in their blue and silver, bearing their burning tapers, and gracefully bending their handsome little silkstockinged legs, was pretty; but that was all. I feel as though I had had enough of Romish pageantry for some time to come.

April.-There is no denying now that spring is at hand; yet as I am still far from ready to bid adieu to Munich, I am inclined to close my eyes to her signals, which each day greet me on my walks through the English Garden. Dog'smercury and the lovely glossy arum leaves are rapidly

revealing their vernal beauty. I see pale oxlips nodding here and there upon mossy banks, and bunches of them lie withering upon the pathways, gathered farther on in the Garden by children's hands, and then dropped. At times, as the sense of rapidly approaching Spring forces itself upon my unwilling eyes, most ungratefully do I long that the beautiful unfolding leaves would, for a short, short time, pause in their unfoldings-would curl themselves up again in their gummy buds and their delicate silky spathes; for all will have burst in fulness of beauty, and will be over, before one's heart has recognised and rejoiced in it, and another tender, beautiful Spring will be vanished away, like a swift dream, out of one's life.

But it is not alone through leaves and blossoms that Spring announces her advent in the English Garden; she announces it in many ways, and in none more lovely than by her gulls. Do not say I am gulling you when I talk of gulls in the English Garden. The other morning, as I neared the little bridge crossing the rushing branch of the Isar, opposite to Prinz Carl's Palace, not many hundred yards from the town, and below the very palace windows, I saw a number of large, white-winged birds, careering about wildly in the air, just over the little bridge. The Garden resounded with their shrill cries. There must have been about a hundred of these birds, at the very least. Now they flapped their broad white wings, till they gleamed and glanced dazzlingly in the sunlight; now they poised their quivering grey little bodies in the deep blue sky, or balanced themselves upon the sparkling green waves of the rushing water; then again darted up, up, up away high into the sky-whirling among the distant leafless trees, like a cloud of white butterflies-their wild cries echoing joyously, vernally, through the lawns and groves

of the wild, park-like Garden. It was a lovely, joyous bit of poetry.

I understand that these birds come at a certain time each Spring, for a few days, to particular spots in the English Garden, and then again disappear entirely. They come in search of a peculiar kind of food. They fly many miles from a lake among the mountains; returning to roost in their Alpine home.

each night

The other evening, upon this same bridge, I had another pleasant peep into the lives of small woodland creatures. A brisk squirrel suddenly dropped down from a tree before me-glanced at me with his roguish black eyes-set up his tawny, bushy tail-paused for a moment, as if gazing at, and meditating upon, the slavery endured by the poor sentinel, pacing with glittering bayonet before the ducal palace; then sprang nimbly up again upon the tree, disappearing in the network of branches.

The gardeneresses also announce that Spring is at hand. Coming suddenly upon a group of these the other day in the English Garden, I was considerably staggered for the first moment with regard to their sex. All wore hatsbroad-brimmed and narrow-brimmed-slouch hats, Tyrolean hats, straw hats, and felt hats and beaver hats-green, grey, black, and brown. All wore handkerchiefs tied beneath their hats-red, orange, blue-and-white, striped, spotted, and checked. All wore very short, thick petticoats, and very clumsy shoes-some even big boots—and many wore coats—great-coats or jackets—drab, brown, and black. All had rakes in their hands, and were raking away heaps and heaps of dead leaves as fast as they could rake. Their faces were the faces of old men, not of women.

Never, certainly, did I encounter a more astounding company of odd-fellows.

Smiling to myself, I passed this group of gardeneresses,