6

Rosebud,' and the sound of the pet names made the shower burst forth afresh; but I know he still keeps up with Marie Dreuser, and there be those that say he is going to marry her. She is more noble and rich than I am, I know, but she doesn't love him as I do, or she wouldn't be such good company for Herr Reichardt, the master of the quarry works yonder.'

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And you love him so dearly?'

'So dearly,' answered the girl, taking up Nesta's words, that I don't want to harm him by marrying him. This is to tell him so,' she went on, pointing to the letter; and a sort of triumphant expression spread itself over her face, as she added, he has been very good to me, but that's not why I should wish to humble him by marrying him. It's

all very well when he is courting me, and he deceives himself into believing that it's all right; but when it comes to the point, and he finds he has got a bride who can't so much as buy the gown she's to be betrothed in, set aside all the linen and things, he

would feel humbled enough, and Frau Mässinger would never forgive me.'

'And you have written to give him up?' 'Yes,' she answered, with the same look of pride. 'I am not jealous, and it's not because I do not know he loves me; he loves me when he sees me at my work, and he stands by and helps me, and he praises me, and says all sorts of winsome things to me; but it's different when he comes upon me among others. How can he keep company with me in my cotton gown, when there are those standing by in their stuffs and silks? But he mustn't marry me, unless his love shut his to this, and it doesn't. Ach! he is too good and handsome for such as me.'

eyes

'And you are quite willing to give him up, Rosa? Won't you repent when the letter is in the post, and you see old Lenz hobbling down the road with it in his bundle?'

I shall have done what is right,' said the girl. I only leave him free to do as he thinks best. If he is not ashamed of my cotton gown, and will have me as I am without a

gulden to buy another, he has only got to say it before the world; but I can't let him be loving me, and keeping it a secret, and behaving to Marie Dreuser as if he were her bridegroom.'

"

There is no love without jealousy, my poor girl; the only antidote to it is trust.' 'I do trust him,' said Rosa; but they shall not say I have harmed him, and stood in his way. All my life long I shall love him. He has been very good to me; he was the first since mother died who ever had a smile or a good word for me, and when I used to go into the fields and work, it never seemed like labour, because he was near. And when he said goodbye that night, he spoke such words to me. All my life I shall love him; but if it's better for him not to marry me, why should I stand in his way?'

They were broken words, interrupted here and there by sobs.

They had reached the house, with its large signboard of the Prussian Eagle. Rosa went in and bought the stamp, and dropped the

letter into the box, and then walked back as fast as she could to the mill in the valley, just in time to take the potatoes off the stove, and to place them in a great heap on the table, for the mid-day meal of Frau Mässinger and her family.

CHAPTER X.

OFF, OFF AND AWAY.

'I loathe the squares and streets,

And the faces that one meets,

Hearts with no love for me.'-Maud.

WHEN Harry Newton left Germany, he went to his mother's house in London. He had started by the early train, and had travelled on for the first few hours utterly unmindful of his destination, with only a vague feeling that he was going back to England, and going as far and as fast as he could from the scene of his misery. He had spent some pleasant months in Germany, at first a tourist and at last a guest in the house of his college friend, Frank Stanley ; but the memory of all pleasant days was utterly effaced for the present, and a big dark blot seemed to shroud the whole of his existence there.

He had few fellow-travellers in the early