sweeping her harp in accompaniment of the wildest songs of her Fatherland; anon would she lift her melting eyes to heaven as she touched the trembling chords to the softer melody of a Virgin’s evening hymn. The old priest would be absorbed in his breviary, as he paced the graveled walk; he had long since given up the race, and the little scholar had left him immeasurably behind. It was not wonderful that Ella became the admired of all the country around even at that early age: but she bore her honors so becomingly, with so much modesty and simplicity, that—wonderful to say—there was not one among her companions who did not love her. She was so gentle and so good. In the _Bower of Castle Mount_, I said that Roderick told me that Father Klaus was aware of the growing attachment between him and Ella, almost as soon as themselves. In this, two circumstances may seem strange—first, that she, educated, accomplished, admired, courted, should fancy a poor, plain, hardy country-lad like Roderick; and secondly, that her uncle should approve and encourage her in such a fancy. Roderick’s family was very humble, scarcely above a peasant’s condition; but in this regard she placed herself upon a perfect equality with him, and never gave the matter much consideration. The truth is, she had loved him with a childish love before she knew that there existed any other. The first summer after she returned from Cologne, regularly every Saturday afternoon or festival eve, would he come to help her gather flowers for the altar. This office of decking the altar is only performed by the hands of virgins, and when one enters into the state of matrimony she no longer takes her place among the servants of the sanctuary. Our young pair (he was but four years older than she) would wander off to the woods together, and Roderick would climb the highest rocks for moss, or some stray flower blooming alone; and carry the heavy basket. At times he would strip off his shoes, and, Paul and Virginia-like, stagger with his beloved burden across the streams. When evening approached, he would mock the squirrels, the partridges, the wood-robins and the katy-dids, and put the whole forest in tune before its time, to Ella’s ineffable delight. Often, when he had doffed his jacket and thrown it down for her to sit upon, would he recline upon his arm, his hat drawn over his brow, pensive and melancholy; and sometimes a tear would trickle down, as the truth forced itself upon him, that, despite their intimacy, fortune, and fortune only, had placed an insurmountable barrier between him and the idol of his thoughts and dreams. He would beg her to love him, and she would readily answer that she did love him. “Better than all the other boys?” “Yes, better than all the other boys.”