forget every thing but that. Then she would look up and smile, and come and bend her head over my shoulder to see the progress of my sketching, and find the whole sheet covered over with images of herself, and Ella, Ella, Ella, scribbled in every form, and ornamented with every possible device. Then she would steal her little hand over my eyes, and say I was a ‘lazy, lazy boy.’ Perhaps, sir, you cannot know why I speak of these little things, and you may deem them trifling; but, sir, it is a true saying that life is made up of trifles. It was so that she wound about me a web that could not be unwound; all these endearing trifles cannot be reversed, one by one, and the web uncoiled. There is but one method of release, and that is, by a mighty effort to burst the whole fabric—even then, the shreds will hang about, and float in every breath of memory. Here, time after time, we repeated our vows of love and fidelity, and eagerly looked forward to the day that would crown our happiness. “In the meantime Count Reisach died, and his son, a youth of some twenty years, succeeded to the estates. He was known ere that time, through all the land, for his boldness, courtliness and generosity, courted and sought by all the nobility and gentry—for he was handsome and rich. Moreover, he was a connoisseur in almost all the fine arts. I was often employed by him in copying his paintings for presents to his friends. Once he induced me to part with a portrait of Ella, which I was very proud of, and which he had seen at Father Klaus’s. I often saw him there. One evening last April, as I was returning from town, I turned down the path, for I knew I should meet Ella here. I was startled by a shriek. I cried, Ella! Ella! In a moment I was here upon the spot, and she rushed into my arms, weeping and frightened. To all my questions as to what had alarmed her, she only sobbed. I seated her, and examined all about the bower; I thought of serpents, and searched under rocks, peered over the bushy precipice, but could discover nothing. We could not sit and enjoy that evening—she was agitated, and I led her home. She did not go often to the bower after that. One evening, it might be a fortnight after, upon appointment, I came here again to meet her, and I found her weeping. As before, I took her home. Another time, she was not weeping, but seemed silent, thoughtful, depressed. We went home again. I was puzzled, pained; I knew not what to think or do, and she revealed nothing to all my entreaties. She would not go to the bower any more. At times she wore a deadly paleness for days, and again she would glow with a flush, as though a fresh impulse were given to her life. She was evidently declining. All the neighbors watched and pitied “poor Ella;” they pitied Father Klaus, but none knew the extent of the agony I nursed in secret. When I would beg her to walk with me to the bower that her and my childish hands had built, and where we always were so happy, she