with a long iron spoon to dip in the dish. Luisa was quite at her ease; but though she had been put by her mother❘ under Peter's care, she would not sit next him, but slipped into a place on the opposite side of the table. All these trifling acts distressed and puzzled him; but he had voluntarily sought the office of guardian, an office not a sinecure at any time, and, as he was soon to discover, fraught with indescribable misery to a man in love. That mortal malady was upon him, but he did not recognize its symptoms. When he rose the next day, an hour before the early summer dawn, in order to do the heavier part of Luisa's work before she should come over to the stall; when, later in the day, the sun was hot on the fields, and he bade her sit still, while he ran about collecting the cows for the return to the stall-these acts would have enlightened many men as to their own feelings, but Peter was naturally unselfish, and really believed that he only wished to save the girl trouble. Luisa was apparently devoted to her work (it was not her fault if Peter did most of it), quiet, taciturn even, and with a tranquil indifference and indolence in her movements which was the reverse of flaunting; and yet she had not been twenty-four hours in the village before every marriageable peasant was aware of her presence, and more or less agitated by it. Although the nature of their avocations threw Peter and Luisa constantly together they were never alone. There was always a third and often more, for nearly every young peasant in or near the village managed to pass the cow-stall once or twice a day; and when the cows were led forth to the upper fields for their daily airing, | youths seemed to crop up like mushrooms, even in the most solitary places, youths at whom Luisa would glance half shyly and half mockingly as she went by, and who ever after haunted her footsteps. Peter began to know the beating heart, the throbbing pulses, the ceaseless unrest, which is the portion of those who love in vain. In truth, his passion for the girl raged in his veins like a devastating fever. He

was transported by jealousy too, and this led him to commit many follies. He followed and watched Luisa perpetually, and for his reward had the pain of seeing young Lieutenant von Stendhorst hold his gold watch to her ear that she might hear it tick, and Prince Giovanelli's dignified white-haired valet try his respectable cap with its gold band on her pretty head, while he submitted to be laughed at by her as she tied her own kerchief under his chin.

After such scenes Peter would heap reproofs, reproaches, and warnings upon Luisa; and then, when she, with undisturbed calm, had let fall a few large, bright tears, his heart would melt within him, and he would go to the shop and buy her a present. It was in this way that, in the course of a few weeks, he bought her a fine white cotton handkerchief with a border of pink roses for her neck, a Sunday gown of black woollen stuff, and a blue silk apron. Each gift meant repentance on his part, and forgiveness on Luisa's. Peter always felt like worshipping her when she forgave him and accepted his gifts; and then, she was always so calm; she never answered him angrily. But if she did not show temper, she still did as she pleased, and the tale of her admirers increased daily, while Peter's jealousy grew in proportion. When, after scolding her because of the attentions of the miller's Johann in the evening, he found long Seppel, from the upper Alp, at the cow-stall the very next morning, he might have seen that it was best for him to let the girl alone. But love laughs at logic, we are told, and Peter's way out of the difficulty was to ask her to marry him. He had not intended to do so, and did not know how he did it; the demand escaped from him unawares, and then he trembled at his own temerity. Luisa said nothing at first, but went on with her milking; then, when pressed for an answer, she murmured her usual, "Who knows?"

"At any rate, she did not say 'no,'" murmured foolish Peter, and thereupon he felt himself betrothed. "Now I shall be easy in my mind," he thought. But

ease was not to be his portion. A ray of sunlight is not more quiet or more elusive than was Luisa; and poor Peter, whose love for her racked him like a torturing pain, was worn away between uneasy dreams by night and fruitless surveillance by day, till he grew ill, feverish, and irritable.

One Sunday morning he rose before the dawn in order to clean the stall betimes, thus leaving Luisa free to dress herself for the procession which was to take place after ten o'clock mass. When, at five o'clock, the girl came over, he thought she looked pale and tired, and that she replied even more absently than usual. He therefore offered to take her work upon himself, and though he was very tired when he at length went to mass, he was rewarded for his fatigue by the sight of Luisa walking in the procession, and clad in the gown, apron, and kerchief that he had given her. She had never looked so lovely nor regarded him so kindly, and he enjoyed that morning a few moments of real happiness. In the afternoon, knowing her to have gone to a neighboring village with the landlady's sister, a middle-aged and serious married woman, he permitted himself a quiet rect on the straw in the cowstall. He had been sleeping for two hours or more when he dreamed that he was stroking Luisa's hair, a privilege never yet accorded to him. How soft it was, and how she was laughing! No he was stroking the kitten, and it was a man's laugh which had wakened him. He sat up on the straw and listened; another loud laugh rang upon his ear; then a voice said: "Old fool! She'll lead him a pretty dance." It was the voice of the miller's Johann, and he heard Rudolf Stein, one of the guides, make some reply. Then Johann went on: "A cunning fox! She was dancing all night at Wolfsgruben, when the old fool thought she was asleep." Peter wondered vaguely of whom they were talking, but he did not care much; and then the voices reached him again in fragmentary utterances. "Been to Badseis with him this afternoon-sitting under the tree behind the stall

now, billing and cooing." "Lucky fellow! I wish it may be my turn next," answered Rudolf with a laugh.

Then the steps and voices retreated, leaving Peter a prey to strange palpitations and conjectures. Who was sitting under the tree behind the stall now? Only one window looked out upon that tree, and that window was merely a pane of glass, high up in the loft. If he climbed up, he could see. Pshaw! What did it matter to him? Then suddenly he heard a kiss, and then a little rippling laugh he knew well, and then more kisses; and then, he knew not how, he had climbed the wall and was looking out. There under the tree sat Luisa, with long Seppel's arm round her waist, and her hand in his. Some sound must have disturbed them, for they sprang apart with the adroitness of long habit, Seppel going negligently up the hill, and Luisa picking up her milking-pail. When Peter dropped panting and gasping to the ground, she was standing quietly beside him in all her Sunday bravery.

The passions that make tragedy possessed poor Peter then; and the only excuse for what he did is to be found in the fact that he was in such a whirlwind of emotion that he lost consciousness of his own existence. It was a madman who now rushed upon the girl and struck her, and then in an instant was on the ground at her feet clasping her knees and praying her to "Forgive -forgive!"

Luisa, at the first blow, had thrown down her milking-pail and screamed aloud; scream followed scream until the peasants came rushing in, and after them the landlord and landlady, in high indignation "at such a scandal, and the bells ringing for the Ave Maria, and the Herrschaften going by to church!"

Peter seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and contempt as the sobbing Luisa was led off by the landlady, and he himself hustled and kicked out of the stall. At nine o'clock he crept out of the hayloft, in which he had taken refuge, heart-broken, contrite, and quite calm. He went first to the stall, but it was shut and locked,

and he knew that he should never tend Herr Mair's cows again. Then he crossed the green and looked in at the window of the inn. Luisa was sitting at the round table with the other peasants; her eyes were swollen, and her cheeks reddened with crying; but she looked lovelier than ever, and his soul melted within him as he gazed. He did not dare to approach her; and when, after receiving, together with his dismissal, a torrent of reprimand and abuse from the landlord, he again looked in at the window, she had vanished.

In the grey dawn of the next morning, impoverished in purse and injured in reputation, Peter left Klobenstein to seek his fortune elsewhere. Luisa had refused to see him, although he had, through the landlady, implored her forgiveness with bitter tears, and had again and again acknowledged that she was too young for him. His tears and entreaties were vain, however, and he went his lonely way with bitterness in his soul. Disappointment, remorse, regret, lashed him on like whips; and under their stinging impulse he fled down the mountain, and reached Bozen at nine o'clock. Once there, a new thought revived hope and lent him wings; the thought that Anna Morero would perhaps not allow her daughter to keep her place now that he was no longer cowherd.

He had left Klobenstein at four in the morning, and by a miracle of walking, difficult and dangerous in the hot sun, he reached Cavalese at three in the afternoon. Anna was knitting at the door of the cottage, and received him with much surprise. She knew nothing of what had happened, nor did Peter tell her of the blows which tortured his own soul in remembrance. When she heard that he had left his place, however, she had nothing but blame for him, and laughed to scorn the idea of removing her daughter. She also ridiculed his attachment to Luisa without mercy. When Peter rose to go, she did indeed offer him food and drink: but she forgot to ask him to step inside the doorway of his own house, and he

was too agitated to notice the ommission.

"You've been an old fool, Peter, and that's the truth," was her farewell, and in the depths of his soul the poor fellow knew that she was right. Then the hammers began to beat in his head again, and the thought that now Luisa could be with long Seppel as much as she pleased drove him on. In the blazing noontide sun he had climbed the mountain; in the face of the declining sun he again descended it. Descended! that is hardly the word for the way in which the raging, panting maniac dashed headlong down, bruising himself against rocks and trees but never pausing in his mad flight. Dusk had fallen when he reached Bozen, and a hot, breathless stillness was in the air. Save for the fever in his blood Peter would have dropped exhausted; but he looked at the heights which rose beyond him, and the thought of Luisa with long Seppel lashed him like a whip. He was crossing the railwaytrack now, and a loud roaring was in his ears, but he had heard it all day; shouts, too, he heard, but they only confused him. He hastened on, hearing more shouts; then suddenly came a crash and a grinding pain, which however was but momentary, and then he found himself lying on his back, and looking up at the stars with a great calm upon him. He was vaguely conscious of being surrounded by kindly, compassionate faces, and of hearing voices no longer speaking in tones of reproach; but he fainted as he was being carried to the hospital, and was put under the influence of chloroform while his legs were being amputated; and it is doubtful if he were ever really clear in his mind after that.

On the fourth day after his accident gangrene set in, and on the fifth he died. At nine in the morning he had received the last sacraments, and as the priest stood beside his bed, a ray of sunshine shone on the crucifix he held, and Peter had a momentary gleam of consciousness. "Am I so ill as that?" he cried, then relapsed into unconsciousness and a silence never after