closer to the fire. 'It's among the best of faults, and one you'll get over. Why, bless me, I was small too at your age!'

It was impossible to resist the comicality of Peter's consolation, considering his remarkably diminutive size. Fritz, with his cheek still smarting, smiled up into my laughing face. Even Behr's grim muscles relaxed; and Heiner's lips (even though one was sore) broke into a smile.

'And then, ye see,' concluded Peter, with unmoved gravity, 'I shot up all at once.'

Of course we laughed out then; and I declare it was almost merrily that we paid for the spilt ale, and started once more on our walk.

On we went again in our old order, except that I kept the boys beside me now. In the waning light between the day and the dark, we were startled as we plodded on by a loud 'Hurrah!' from Peter, who, in advance, had made a dead stop before a large red mansion, light and warm and wealthy looking, the very place to give us hope. Heiner characteristically forbore to exhibit any excitement or anticipation; but it was he himself who opened the lawn-gate, and watched us in one at a time, as if to make quite sure of us; and I noticed that Behr, though he muttered that it wasn't worth while going out of our way on a chance, was the first to enter. I tapped Fritz merrily on the head, telling him to play his best; and he— simply answering me by a bright smile-whispered to his little brother to dry his eyes, for now it would be all right.'

What a blaze of firelight there was in many windows! It almost gave us warmth to look at its reflection on the pictured walls, though we were standing in the snow.

We played tune after tune, only pausing a few seconds between ; for there was a group of children's faces at one window, and in one of the lower rooms there was a cluster of idle figures. Still no one appeared at the door, or answered little Karl's mute appeals with his hat.

'One piece more only,' I said.

"Spring, Spring," dictated Behr, who looks upon that little melody as the favourite national air of England.

I delayed a little, unconsciously laying my hand on the head of little Fritz-I suppose because I was thinking how brave the child looked, and what a contrast his cold little face was to those glowing ones at the window.

Perhaps he thought from my gesture that I had addressed him too. 'Please, Leader,' he whispered, let it be "Des Deutschen Vaterland."

I turned hastily enough from the proposal. The beautiful air, with its thousand dear associations, always made the homeless, fatherless lads cry, made even Peter silent, and put Behr out of

temper if he had not been out before. At such a time as this I knew it would unman us all; so I chose a simple English air in which there was a refrain to be sung, for I thought the clear sweet voice of little Fritz might move the listeners. No response still, and then we sent Karlschen to the door, while we all stood waiting. Surely his pretty delicate face, pinched by cold and hunger, would win some pity. The child was soon back. The servant who came to him had thrown out a penny, and then shut the door hurriedly against the wind. Behr muttered gruffly that he had told us so,' but that intelligence did not make the disappointment very much less keen to any of us. Heiner, shaking the snow from his feet with lugubrious contempt, gave vent to a mild lamentation over the too-badness of things in general; but Peter, after bowing pleasantly to the lighted windows, raised his trombone, and struck into a gay little trinklied, marching down the white lawn the while with airy defiance.

'Come along, boys,' I called, holding out my hand, and hoping, I must own, that Fritz would take it, because he was my favourite; come along.' And at that moment Behr gave the gate a huge bang to express his feelings.

As we went on and on, and the snow fell again, our spirits fell with it; and as the gloominess of the winter evening deepened, our gloominess deepened too. So that when at last we reached a solitary house lying back from the road, we hardly thought of stopping, for there wasn't a grain of hope among us.

We may as well try, I suppose. It is just one more chance,' I said, passing into the garden. But they all made a stubborn halt at the gate before they would follow me; all except Peter, who came on whistling Hope told a flattering Tale.'

The snow fell from the shrubs as we brushed past them, and when we stood to play, we felt it over our boots.

Through one of the lower windows of the house before us we saw a little girl sitting alone in the firelight; and when we had played one tune, the house-door was opened, and the pretty child, looking as warm and bright as if it was midsummer-day, ran from the house straight up to Fritz, and put a sixpence into his hand, passing Karlschen's, which was held out by force of habit to receive it. We all noticed this, a little surprised and a little amused too. She gave it with a smile straight into the lad's face, then raced back daintily over the snow; and a few minutes afterwards we saw her again, sitting upon the rug alone in the firelight. Hardly once did the wistful eyes of little Fritz wander from her as she sat there so still, in the glow of warmth and light.

When that tune was finished I intended to turn; but at that moment, in a sudden unexpected manner, Peter's trombone broke into a lively rendering of the Last Rose of Summer,' and we all scrambled in as quickly as we could, and as correctly as we might.

Heiner, who no doubt felt he had been taken at a disadvantage, closed his lips in silence on his reed. With my cornet at my mouth, I turned to Peter for a solution of his haste, and then I saw it all explained. At a little gate among the shrubs-so near that we could plainly see them even in the gloom-two people stood quite still listening to us: a young girl on one side the path, her dress warm and bright against the snowy leaves, a bunch of glistening holly in her hand, and a pair of lustrous eyes fixed upon us. Beside her a gentleman stood against the little gate, gazing steadfastly into her face, with a look which made me feel pretty sure that, just before this, he had told her a certain story, and had been answered in words which floated back to him upon the music he heard, just as perhaps his story floated back to her.

Presently, in our pause, they came forward together, and the gentleman-I fancied he didn't belong to the house, and that she did-put two half-crowns into my hand. The young lady stood and spoke to us for a little bit about the cold and the music, then gave us a smile and a 'Good-night,' and passed on; and the smile made her face just like the face of the little girl who had given her sixpence to Fritz. We were very badly off just then, so I don't say that the smile was worth as much to us as the five shillings, but I think it was received quite as gratefully.

'Another tune,' I whispered, as the two walked on to the house. "Spring, gentle Spring"!' cried Behr, quite excitedly.

At the same moment Fritz whispered eagerly, "Des Deutschen Vaterland" please, Leader. P'raps they love it.'

'Start on,' put in Peter, in a tone of unquestionable authority. 'Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen.' And remembering the tender episode of Marguerite, we acknowledged Peter's right to dictate in this instance.

'A pleasant change in our day's experience,' observed Behr, as we put up our instruments; and he closed the snowy gate quite gently. I hope to see this house again some day.'

Quite cheerfully now we hurried on to the first inn we found. Two or three miles the walk must have been; but we thought nothing of it, choosing our supper as we went, and getting more and more extravagant and impossible in our notions, until we were pulled up at the third or fourth course of Peter's banquet.

When, a few hours later on, I looked in upon the tired lads in their dot of a bed, I found Fritz still wide awake.

'I'm thinking of the little lady who ran out to me in the snowy garden,' he said, looking up into my face with big bright eyes.

'But you've seen many little ladies,' I answered coolly, just to quiet him and they needn't keep you awake. You'll see many more too, just as pretty.'

'I saw her in the snow,' he whispered softly,' and I saw her

in the fire-light; and I was thinking I should like to see her just once again in the sunshine. Just once again, Leader; do you think I shall ?'

'Of course you'll see her again, and in the sunshine too.'

I said it just to soothe him, and didn't mind at all about its probability.

II.

SUMMER.

It was perfectly startling in its effect, that rose in Peter's buttonhole; not that it was different in itself from other roses, the effect lay in its arrangement. It was entirely surrounded by full-grown and glossy leaves, each one of which was, at its point, pinned back to Peter's coat, so that the rose bloomed in the centre of a vivid radius, which extended over the greater part of the little trombonist's chest, and formed what he himself termed a striking decoration. But he was not the only one who boasted a flower in his coat; for, before we started, Fritz had begged two small white pinks, and, as proudly as if it meant a whole new suit, he had carefully pinned one in his little brother's coat, and one in his own.

'Karl doesn't look a bit shabby now; does he, Leader?' he asked me, surveying him with a protecting admiration which was unspeakably touching in the child.

Shabby! The word could not attach to any of us after the elaborate care we had expended in preparing for this expedition. Shabby! when Behr's neck was rasped by the stiffness of his clean collar-rather fringed at the edges, but then the edges didn't show much; and Heiner's straight locks glistened so unctuously in the sun; and spruce little Peter, stepping warily in the dust, stopped every few minutes to flick his handkerchief over some part of his attire.

We had an engagement, you see-a very grand engagement for us-and our walk must needs be a cheerful one, though it was long and sultry. We were to play all afternoon on the hill where the picnic was to be held, then go down to the house of the gentleman who gave the party, and play there during the supper and a dance.

The nearest way to the hill had been pointed out to us, and we were very glad to leave the dusty road at last, and turn into the woods. What a relief this shadow was, after the burning sun-rays! It was a wonderful wood, reminding us a little of the beauty and the awful solitude of our own forests. Karlschen was tired now, and lingered at my side; even Fritz, who scarcely ever owned to being tired, and who had been scampering in the bracken like a young stag, lagged presently, and walked sedately among us. we went on, we began to recall the wild weird legends of our native forests. We did it partly to shorten the way, and partly because such memories came easily to us in this scene, and we only laughed

As

to see the rapt faces of the lads as they listened. Story after story we told, of travellers lost or robbed or murdered in the forests, and of the gnomes and sprites and fairies which haunt them.

Presently Heiner, who had evidently been ransacking his brain for the dolefullest thing he could remember, told us of a forest he knew, so vast and silent and dim, and where the solitude was so solemn and so terrible, that those who lost their way there at once committed suicide, unable to endure the awful loneliness and stillness; and how, in consequence of this, their unquiet and unhappy spirits haunted it always.

'Committed suicide!' exclaimed Peter. about the last thing I should do in such a case.'

'It was about the last thing they did, too.'

Mein Gott, that's

The shortest way of getting out of the wood,' explained Heiner coolly. 'And I can tell you I wouldn't be there after dark for a thousand thälers.'

'Suicides!' echoed Fritz, raising his wondering eyes to Heiner. 'What are they?'

We were all fools enough to help Clarry in his dreary explanation, and then we laughed at the sudden scream little Karl gave when a pheasant started unexpectedly from the covert before us.

Were you frightened?' asked Fritz, looking with a smile into his little brother's face; but I noticed that his own had whitened too, and I was not sorry to leave the wood and begin the ascent of the hill, though Behr's breath grew short with the weight of his 'cello and his own ponderous person.

May I carry it a bit, Behr ?' asked Fritz, whose step was as light upon the hillside as in the wood below.

I laughed at the notion, but Cello condescended no reply.

It was not till we'd been some time in our places that we had time or opportunity to look about us among the gay party assembled on the hill. It is but seldom that in our wandering lives we meet again faces that we know or recognise, but almost in that first minute I recognised one of the faces here, the sweetest and the prettiest of all; the face of the young lady who, on that bitter winter evening six months before, had stood in the snow to listen to us. When I saw and recognised her, I looked round at once for the gentleman who had been with her on that night. It was a good while before I saw him at all, and then I noticed how far away from her he kept; and through all the time I watched him I could see that he never once glanced in her direction; while beside her hovered a short dark gentleman, a good bit older, and as different from him as cloud from sunshine. Of course, I didn't see it all at once; I had the whole day to make my observations; but I did notice this—the short dark gentleman hardly left her at all, hardly allowed her to talk to any one else, and kept, in a way, sole posses