If our task as story-teller had not other claims on us, we would gladly linger with Nelly Dalton, as, in company with Hanserl and old Andy, she wended her slow way through the deep valleys of the Schwartz wald. The little party might have created astonishment in even more frequented districts than the primitive tract in which they journeyed, and have suggested many a puzzling doubt as to what rank or condition they belonged to. For Andy's convenience Hans had purchased an ass and a small cart, such as are sometimes used by the travelling beggars of every land. Seated in this, and in his old hunting-cap and scarlet coat, the old man fancied it was some pleasure excursion, or that he was “trundling along” to “cover,” as he used to do sixty years ago. Nelly walked at his side, now roused from her deep musings to reply to some meaningless question of the old man, or now feeding her sad memories as she listened to the little snatches of song which occasionally broke from him. Hanserl formed the rear-guard, making with his redoubted battle-axe and a most formidable old Turkish pistol, not the least singular figure in the procession. Their very baggage too had something strange and incomprehensible to common eyes; for, amidst stray scraps of old armor, the little remnants of Hanserl's collection, were to be seen an unfinished figure by Nelly's hand, or the rude beginning of some new group. Along with these were books and tools, and an infinity of queer costumes, of the dwarfs own designing, for various seasons of the year. Still, there was no impertinence in the curiosity that met them. If Andy's strange equipage and stranger dress might have raised a smile, Nelly's gentle look and modest air as rapidly checked it, and they who would have laughed outright at Hanserl's mock-chieftainship were subdued to a respectful deference by the placid dignity of her who walked before him. It was in that memorable year whose doings are recorded in our memory with all the solemn force of History, and all the distinct and vivid effect of events passing before our own eyes; that era, when Thrones rocked and tottered, and kings, who seemed destined to transmit their crowns to unborn generations, became exiles, and cast away, their state a mockery, and their princely homes given up to pillage; when the brightest day-dreams of good men became bound up with the wildest imaginings of the bold and the bad, and the word Freedom comprehended all that was most glorious in self-devotion, and all that was most relentless in hate,----in that troubled time, Hanserl wisely sought out the districts of mountain and crag--the homes of the hunter--in preference to the more travelled roads, and prudently preferred even the devious windings of the solitary glens to the thronged and peopled highways that connected great cities.