away—she is as she was before: can you not leave her so?"

"No!" thundered the dwarf; "I will have the life of her before I've done."

"Never!" in his turn shouted Jössl; and he placed himself in front of the elf.

"Oh, don't be afraid,” replied the dwarf, with a cold sneer, "I'm not going after her. I've only to wait a bit, and she'll come after me."

Jössl was inclined to let him go, but remembering the instability of woman, he thought it better to make an end of the tempter there and then.

"Will you promise me, that if I let you return to your hole in peace, you will do her no harm should she visit you there again?"

"I promise you that I will serve her to the most frightful of deaths-that's what I promise you!" retorted the enraged gnome.

"Then your blood be on your own head!" said Jössl, and, with his large hunting-knife drawn in his hand, he placed himself in a menacing attitude before the now alarmed dwarf.

Jössl was a determined, powerful youth, not to be trifled with. The gnome trusted to the strength of his muscles, and fled with all his speed; but Jössl, who was a cunning runner too, maintained his place close behind him. The dwarf, finding himself so hotly followed, began to lose his head,

and no longer felt so clearly as at first the direction he had to take to reach the Röhrerbüchel. Jössl continued to drive him before him, puzzling him on the zigzags of the path till he had completely lost the instinct of his way of safety. Then, forcing him on as before to the edge of the precipice, he closed upon him where there was no escape.

Yes, one escape there was—it was in the floods of the Brandenburger Ache, which roared and boiled away some hundred feet below! Rather than fall ignominiously by the hand of a child of man, the gnome dashed himself, with a fierce shout, down the abyss. And that was the last that was ever seen of the Nickel of the Röhrerbüchel.

Aennerl was now poorer than ever in this world's goods, but she was rich in one deep and wholesome lesson—that it is not glittering wealth which brings true happiness. The smiles of honest friends, and the love of a true heart, and the testimony of an approving conscience are not to be bartered away for all the gold in all the mines. of the earth.

Wilder Karl laughed with his two or three boon companions, and said, with a burst of contempt, "I've no doubt that fool of a Goigner Jössl will marry the orphan Aennerl now that she hasn't a penny to bless herself with!"

And the Wilder Karl judged right. Aennerl scarcely dared hope that he could love her still,

and she went forth humbly to her work day by day, neither looking to the right hand nor the left, accepting all the hardships and humiliations of her lot as a worthy punishment of her folly and vanity.

But one evening as she came home from her toil, the Goigner Jössl came behind her, and he said softly in her ear, "Do you love me still, Aennerl?"

"Love you still, Jössl !" cried the girl; "you have thrice given me life-first when I was a poor, heartbroken orphan, and you made me feel there was still some one to live for in the world; and then a second time, in that dreadful fire, when hell seemed to have risen up out of the earth to punish me before the time; and now again this third time, when I began to think my folly had sickened you for good and all! Don't ask me that, Jössl, for you must know I love you more than my life! If I dared, there is one question I should ask you, Can you still love me? but I have no right to ask that."

“I must answer you in your own words, Aennerl," replied Jössl: "you must know that I love you more than my life!”

"You must, you must-you have shown it!" exclaimed Aennerl. They had reached the bank near the Röhrerbüchel where we first saw them; the rosy light of the sunset, and the scent of the

wild flowers, was around them just as on that night.

"Yes," said Aennerl, after a pause, as if it were just then that Jössl had said the words "yes, Jössl, this is happiness; we want nothing more in this world than the warm sun, and the blue skyand to be together! Yes, Jössl, we shall always be happy together."

They walked on together; as they reached the memorial of the dead miners the village bells rang the Ave. And as they knelt down, how heartfelt was Jössl's gratitude that the prayer he had • uttered at that spot once before had been so mercifully answered, and his Aennerl restored to him. for ever!

4 Page 76.

THE WILDER JÄGER AND THE

BARONESS.

HERE was a rich and powerful baron who owned a broad patrimony in South Tirol, Baron di Valle. He was not only one of the richest and most powerful, he was also one of the happiest, for he had the prettiest and most sensible woman of Tirol for his bride. The brief days were all too short for the pleasure they found in each other's society, and they were scarcely ever apart the whole day through.

Once, however, the Baron went on a hunting party through a part of the country which was too rough for the Baroness to follow him. The day was splendid, the scent good, and the Baron full of enthusiasm for his favourite sport; but what egged him on more than all these, was the sight of a strange bold hunter who bestrode a gigantic mount, and who dashed through brake and briar, and over hill and rock, as if no obstacle could arrest him. Baron di Valle, who thought he was the