crackling, and a young girl was weeping on a
young man's shoulder.

"At last in my arms again, my forest
flower?"

"Lord Count, Lord Count! " said Gertrude,
"let hope be at an end between us."

"But I am still your Leonard, and you are
to be my little wife."

"My father frightens me; your mother
will oppose you."

"My mother; yes.  To avoid her anger
we must wait.  But your father?"

Lying on his shoulder she began to tell
him all her fears, which he endeavoured to
allay with kisses.  A flash and a loud report.
Glass breaks, and the young nobleman is
sprinkled with the blood of Gertrude.  She
can utter but a single cry before she lies
upon the sofa, dead.

A few minutes afterwards, the old huntsman
entered slowly, by the door.  "Ducker!
Ducker! " the count shouted in agony, "here
is murder done!  Your beautiful Gertrude
shot!"

"Ay, to be sure, she will not stir again,"
said Ducker.  "It was a shot well aimed—
through the centre of the heart."

The Count was bewildered at his coldness.

"This is your Gertrude, father—my
Gertrude!"

"Your highness's Gertrude!  I thought she
was only mine."

"He is mad," the Count cried.  "Gertrude!
Beloved Gertrude!  from whatever quarter
the shot came, my vengeance on the
assassin!"

"Whence the shot came," said Ducker;
"I will show you."  And he led him to
the window.  "It came from beside yonder
pine-tree.  A man sat there who suspected
mischief"——

"Wretch!  Madman!  Take your hand
from me!  You have murdered your own
daughter!"

"Take your hand also from me!" said
Ducker; "I have powder and shot for your
highness, if need be, in the other barrel.
Wait—with your hand off—while I tell you
an old story.

There was a Forester who loved a
Countess.  That he did secretly and without
speaking, for he thought much of the
difficulties in his way.  However, he was
prudent, and all ended well, and no man was
the wiser.  But there was a Count who
loved the Wife of a Forester; and that ended
not well.  For when the forester discovered
it,—he took that which belonged to him.
And the Count had a Son, and the Forester a
Daughter.  The old man preached her many
a lesson about rank, and frivolity, and
betrayers; but she loved that son and he
pretended equal love for her.  So, thus—I took
that which belonged to me."

"Miserable assassin!" cried the count.
"She was mine, mine, mine!  You tell me of
sin and passion, but our hearts were before
God, and our love was unspotted.  We were
betrothed; I would have married her."

The old man pointed to the body, and
laughed aloud.

"Her?  You should have said that to her
lady mother at the castle yonder."

"To my mother?—the Countess!"

The young count, with ashen face, recoiled,
and hurrying out, called to his servants, and
spurred his horse home to the castle.  His
mother, the countess heard all from him.
When she knew what the fierce huntsman
had said, how dark a story he had told and
what had been the end of it, her limbs became
stiff as with death; she spoke, only to pronounce
her curse upon whatever foot stepped
in that huntsman's den of crime—upon whatever
man entered that wood to touch a stone
of it.  And then she died.

Hans Ducker carried his daughter down, and
buried her among the flowers of his garden.
Then shouldering his gun he went out of the
house; and, except when he spoke a word to
Peter beyond the mountains, never was seen
more.  The howlings of a dog were heard for
a few days in the wood; they became weaker
and weaker, until all was still.  And from
that hour the stillness was unbroken.

OLD CLOTHES AND NEW CLOTHES.

A SLIGHT costume-sensation was created
in my family the other day.  My eldest boy,
Peter Augustus, assumed his first tails in
the shape of a single-breasted riding-coat, on
the same day that my youngest, Albert
Anthony, abandoned his free-and-easy tartans
for trowsers and a jacket.  Peter was of course
pretty well quizzed by his sisters, who would
turn him round to examine the effect of the
modern toga virilis in every point of view,
and would, let him sulk as he pleased, call
the attention of all visitors, male and female,
to the all-round collar and tails which
had turned Peter into "quite a man."  As for
little Tony, we could not pet him enough:
he had kisses and halfpence from us all; and
kisses and shillings, to hansel his pockets,
from his aunts; besides a new half-
sovereign from his Uncle Contango, of which
mamma immediately took charge.  In the
evening, after I had put an end to more than
one riot in the schoolroom, arising out of the
great costume question, I was not sorry
when the children's bed-time left me alone to
smoke the calumet of peace and to think
over the changes and improvements in the
material and fashion of dress which have
occurred even in the short time—say thirty
years—since I myself went through the
uncomfortable and dignified ceremony of being
breeched.

English children have long been more
fortunate than their grown-up successors.
Swaddling went out before my time, and
little boys wore petticoated tunics at an age
when miserable infants were to be seen in the