“And yet,” said Hanserl, as Nelly stood in silent enjoyment at the little porch,--“and yet, Fräulein, beyond those great mountains yonder, there is strife and carnage. Here all is peaceful and happy; but the whole world of Europe is tempest-torn. Italy is up,--all her people are in wild revolt; Hungary is in open insurrection. I speak not of other lands, whose fortunes affect us not, but the great empire of our Kaiser is convulsed to its very centre. I have just been at Meran, troops are marching in every hour, and every hour come new messengers to bid them hasten southward. Over the Stelvio, where you see that dark line yonder, near the summit of the mountains, on they pour! They say, too, that Upper Austria is in rebellion, and that the roads from Innspruck are unsafe to travel. We are safe here, Fräulein, but you must not venture further. We will try, from some of the officers who pass through, to glean tidings of the Count, your grand-uncle, and where a letter may reach him; but bear with this humble shelter for a while, and think it a home.” If Nelly was disappointed and baffled by this impediment to her journey, she was not one to pass her time in vague regrets, but at once addressed herself to the call of new duties with a willing mind and a cheerful spirit. Resuming her long-neglected tools, she set to work once more, stimulated by the new scenes and subjects around her. To the little children who often formed her “studies,” she became the schoolmistress. To the old who were stricken with sickness or the helplessness of age she used to read for hours together. Every little pathway led her to some office of charity or kindness, till the “good Fräulein” became a village byword, and her name was treasured and her footstep welcomed in every cottage around. Her humble dress, her more humble manner, took nothing from the deference they yielded her. They felt too intensely the inborn superiority of her nature to think of any equality between them, and they venerated her with something like devotion. A physician to the sick, a nurse to the bedridden, a teacher to the ignorant, a blessing and an example to all, Nelly's hours were but too short for the calls of her duties, and, in her care for others, she had no time to bestow on her own sorrows.