MOTHS. 55 Roger, that is evident. Vere did not raise her head from her lace- work perfectly upon bis stage. The doubt hurt her cruelly, and did not stay long with her, for her soul was too noble to harbor distrust. Yet at her ear Jeanne de Son- It. had been written in the hamlet hut under j naz perpetually dropped slight words the Dachstcinspitze, and was in pencil. After ; stories, shrewd hints,tkt all made him the un- graceful opening compliments, in which no one | ter of adventures as varied and as little noble as knew better than himself how to make the , those of any hereof amorous comedy Ever and commonplace triviality of formula seem spon- ! again a chill sickening doubt touched her that taneous and fresh, it went on: she, at once the proudest aud the humblest ' I have shot a^ nobler creature than myself; woman in the world, had been the amusement men generally do when they shoot at all. Emblematic of the Napoleonic cause to which Madame la Duchesse has dedicated herself,— of an hour to a brilliant but shallow persifleur. She carried the gold goblet with the edelweiss of the Thorstein into her own chamber, and, inasmuch as it has lived on carrion, and, though ] when quite alone, she burst into tears golden it will be rotten in a day, or at best ! She never shed tears now. It had seemed to stuffed with straw,—I desire to lay it at the feet ; her as if '.hey were scorched up by the arid des- of Madame Jeanne, where its murderer hasever oration of her life. They did'her good like longed, but never dared, to prostrate himself. \ dew in drought. So much she owed Corrèze I offer the edelweiss to Madame la Princesse ! Corrèze himself at that hour—having taken Zouroff, as it is. well known to be her emblem. ! leave at daybreak of the Imperial hunter and his It has no other value than that of representing courtly companions, who were returning into her by living at an altitude where nothing but ; Ischl—was walking*by his guide's side down the the snow and the star rays presumes to share its ' face of the Dachstein toward the green Rauris solitude." j range, meaning to go across thence into the beau- He said, in conclusion, that his hunting-trip : tiful valley of Ens and descend next day into the having taken up the five days which he had al- ! Maindling Pass between the Salzkammergut and lotted himself for Ischl, he feared he should ; Styria. He was still at a great elevation still see neither of them again until they met in | amidst snow and ice, and the Rauris lav below Pans in winter, as his engagements took him ! him like a green billowy sea. There was some .at once to the Hague, and thence to Dresden, edelweiss in his path, and he stooped and pluck- where there were special performances in honor ed a little piece and put it in his wallet, of one of the gods of his old faith,—Gluck. "O ice-flower, you are not colder than my " Very pretty," reflected the Duchess Jeanne ! heart," he said to himself. " But it is best to as she read. " I suppose he reached the edel- i g°: best for her. I will dedicate myself to you, weiss himself, or he could scarcely have gathered : ice-flower, and of the roses I will have no more; it. I suppose Vera will understand that part of j no'. n0 more of the ' lilies and languor.' Edel the ' emblem.'" But. though she thought so, she did not say so: she was a courageous woman, but not quite courageous enough for that. She gave the edel- weiss and the note together to her companion, and only said, with a little smile, "Corrèze al- ways writes such pretty notes. It is an accom- plishment that has its dangers. There is scarcely a good-looking woman in Paris who has not a bundle, more or less big, of his letters, —all with that tell-tale suggestive device of his, —that silver Love, with one wing caught in a thorn-bush of roses: he drew it. himself. You saw it on his flag at the Kermesse. Oh, of course it is not on this paper. He scribbled this in some chalet of the Dachstein. I will have my eagle stuffed, and it shall have real rubies for eyes, and I will put it in my dining- room in Paris, and Corrèze for his sins shall sit underneath it and pledge the Violet and the Bee. Not that he ever will, though : if he have any political faith at all, he is a Legitimist,—if he be not a Communist. But I don't think he thinks about those things. He told me once that nightingales do not build either in new stucco or in old timber,—that they only wanted a bush of rose laurel. He is a mortel fantasque, you know, and people have spoiled him. He is very vain, and he thinks himself a Sultan." All the while the duchess was studying nar- rowly her companion as she spoke. weiss, you shall live with me and be my amulet. YTou will wither and shrivel and be nothing, but you v ill remind me of my vow, and, if others will rage, let them. To the ice-flower I will be true as far as a man in his weakness can be. Will that denial be love? Intheoldchiv alrous days they read it so. They kept j their fate though they never saw their lady's face. The Duchesse Jeanne would laugh,—and others too." And he went down over the rugged stony slope, with the snow deep on either side, and the green ice glistening at his feet, and the woods of the Rauris lifting themselves up from the' clouds and the gray air below ; and there on Dachstein, where never note of nightingale was heard since the world was made, this nightin- gale, that ladies loved and that roses entangled in their thorns, sang wearily to himself the song of Heine,—the song of the palm-tree and the pine. CHAPTER XXI. The days went on, and the duchess made them gay enough, being one of those persons who cannot live without excitement, and who make it germinate wherever they are. Carried in her chaise-à porteurs, playing chemin defer on I her balcony, waltzing at the little dances of the Vere, without any apparent attention to it, put j imperial court, making excursions in the pine her edelweiss in an old gold hunting-goblet that j woods or down the lakes, she surrounded her- she had bought that morning in one of the little | geif wjth officers and courtiers, and created dark shops of Ischl; and the duchess could tell ' aroUnd her that atmosphere of diversion, revel- nothing from her face, \ Ty, and intrigue without which a woman of our In her heart Vere felt a sense of irritation and world can no more live than a mocking-bird disappointment. The note seemed to her flip pant, the homage of it insincere, and his depart- ure unnecessary and a slight. She did not know that he wanted to turn aside from her the sus- picion of a woman in whom he foresaw a peril without a globe of water. But all the while she never relaxed in a vigilant observation of her companion; and the departure of Corrèze baf- fled and annoyed her. She had had a suspicion, and it had gone out ôus foe for her. and that to disarm worldly | in smoke. She had spent much ingenuity in perils he used worldly weapons. Vere no more i contriving to bring Vere to the Salzkammergut, understood that than one of Chaucer's heroines, \ after having disbursed much in discovering the with straight glaive and simple shield, would i projects for the summer sojourns of Corrèze; have understood the tactics of a game of Krieg- I and with his departure all her carefully-built spiel. ' house of cards fell to pieces. She did not un- And why did he go? ! derstand it; she was completely bewildered, as She was far from dreaming that he went to j he had intended her to be, by the airy indiffer- avoid her. The song of Heine did not mean to ! ence of his message to her companion, and his her all that it meant, to him. That she had some ! failure to return from the glaciers into the val- place of bis memory, some hold on his interest, [ ley. She regretted that she had troubled her- she thought,—but nothing more; and even that ! self to be buried for a month in this green tomb she almost, doubted now; how could he write of among the hills; but it wasjmpo.-sible to change herio Jeanne de Sonnaz' A cold and cruel fear that she had deceived herself in trusting him seized on her; she heard of him always as capricious, as unstable, her imprisonment now. They had begun tbe routine of the waters, and she had to solace her- self as best she might with the Imperial court esies, and with sending little notes to her friends. as vai ; who could tell, she thought? Perhaps ; the sparkle of which was like the brightness of she had only given hira food for vanity and for an acid drink and contrasted strongly with the few grave constrained lines that were penned j by Vere. One day, when they had but little more time to spend on the Traun banks, she got together a , riding and driving party to Old Aussee. Aussee is quaint, and ancient, and charming, ! where it stands on its three-branched river; its people are old fashioned and simple; its encir- cling mountains aud its dark walers are full of 1 peace and solemnity. When the gay world breaks in on these quiet old towns^ and deep lakes and snow-girt hills, there seems aprofanity j in the invasion. It is only fora very Utile while. j At the first breath of autumn the butterflies flee, | and the fishermen and salt-workers and timber- hewers and chamois-hunters are left alone with their walers and their hills. The duchess's driving-party was very pictur- esque, very showy, very noisy: " good society " is always very noisy nowadays, and has forgot- ten that a loud laugh used to be "bad form." They were all people of very high degree, but they all smoked, they all chattered shrilly, and they all looked very much as if they had been cut out of the Vie Parisienne and put in motion. Old Aussee, with its legends, its homely Styrian townsfolk, and its grand circles of snow-clad summits, was nothing to them: they liked the Opern ring, the Bois," or Pall-Mail. Vere got away from them, and went bv her- self to visit the Spitalkirche. The altar is pure I old German work of the fourteenth century, j and she had heard of it from Kaulbach. In these old Austrian towns the churches are al- ways very reverend places, dark and tranquil, overladen indeed with ornament and images, but too full of shadow for these lo much offend ; there is the scent of centuries of incense; the ivories are yellow with the damp of agek Mountain suzerains and bold fitters, whose deeds are still sung of in twilight to the cithern, sleep beneath the moss-grown pavement: their shields and crowns are worn flat to the stone they were embossed on by the passing feet of generations of worshipers. High above in the darkness there is always some colossal carved or molded Christ. Through the half-opined iron- sturided door there is always the smell of pine woods, the gleam of water, the greenness of Alpine grass; often, too, there is the silvery falling of rain, and the fresh smell of it comes through the church, by whose black benches and dim lamps there will be sure to be some old bent woman praying. The little church was more congenial to Vere than the companionship of her'friends, who were boating on the Traun, while their servants unpacked their luncheon and their wines. She managed to elude them, and began to sketch the wings of the altar. She sent her servant to wait outside. The place was dreary and dark ; the pure Alpine air blew in from an open pane in a stained window; there was the tinkle of a cow- bell and the sound of running water from with- out; a dog came and looked at her. The altar was not an easy one to copy; the candles were not lighted before it, and the day- light, gray and subdued without, as it is so often here, was very faint within. " After all, what is the use of my copying it?" she thought, with a certain bitterness. "My husband would tell me, if I cared for such an old thing, to send some painter from Munich to do it for me, and perhaps he would be right. It is the only mission we have, to spend money " It is a mission that most women think the highest and most blest on earth; but it did not satisfy Vere. She seemed to herself so useless, so stupidly, vapidly, frivolously useless; and her nature was one to want work, and noble work. She sat still, with her hands resting on her knees, and the color and oils lying on the stone floor beside her untouched. She looked at the dark bent figure of the old peasant near, who had seta little candle beforeaside altarand was pray- ing fervently. She was a gray-headed, brown, wrinkled creature, dressed in the old Styrian way. She looked rapt and peaceful as she prayed. When she rose, Vere spoke to her, and the old woman answered willingly. Yes, she was very old; yes, she had always dwelt in Aussee; her husband had worked in the salt mines, and been. killed in them, her sons had both died, one at KOniggratz, one in a snow storm upon Dach- stein; that was all long ago; she had some grandchildren, they were in the mines and on the timber-rafts; one had broken his leg going down the Danube with wood; she had gone to him, he was only a boy, she could not get him home any other way, so she had rowed lum back in a A';,