What was her surprise to identify them with those of the gay, the gallant, the handsome, the generous Carl Benzel! He had some time since been one of the most importunate of those customers who were wont to pay her in round money for her eggs, demanding kisses in change; and Liese had even confessed to herself, although to no one else, that if such transactions had not been altogether out of her way, Carl Benzel should be the purchaser. A stronger interest, therefore, attached to him now than that excited merely by his illness and destitute situation; and she considered with extreme anxiety what was best to be done.

It was evident by his retiring to such a place, that he was under a cloud—probably on account of some fatal duel; while it was not less evident that his fever was occasioned or exasperated by unwholesome dietShe saw nothing in the shape of provisions in the room, except some rank vegetables from the wilderness behind the house, that had once been the garden; and these the unhappy young man appeared to have been accustomed to boil, and eat without bread or salt. It was therefore necessary, at the same time, to supply him with proper food and necessaries, and to conceal, even from her simple neighbours, the fact of his residence there at all.

The steps she took to effect the latter object were laborious. The room in which he lodged, overlooking the dark and melancholy court, was directly opposite the hamlet; and she removed her patient therefore, with all his household chattels, to a more convenient apartment behind, which commanded an uninterrupted view of the country. This done, she returned home to her cottage for warm milk and other wholesome provisions; and, in short, before the morning dawn,

succeeded in making the object of her compassion as comfortable as circumstances would allow. It was some days before her tender treatment, together with the medicine she brought from the town, had their due effect; but at length, Carl Benzel began to open his eyes, and take cognisance of the things around him.

At first his perceptions were confused; and seeing only the viands that were placed beside him, while the donor was invisible, for Liese paid her visits of mercy during the night, when he was asleep, he concluded that he was fed, like the prophet Elijah, by supernatural agency. Even the sight and recognition of his young nurse failed to restore his memory. He could not conceive how he had come to be on terms of such intimacy and good neighbourhood with the pretty market-girl of Aix-la-Chapelle. But when at length, by slow degrees, his real situation broke upon his view, a feeling of bitter shame, succeeded by hopeless despondency, threatened him with a dangerous relapse.

The latter state of mind was the consequence of the weakness of his nerves, produced by the disease from which he was just recovering; and Liese, like a skilful doctress, saw that the moment was come for more generous treatment. She nourished him with wine, and with rich and fragrant soups; and, by means of the concoctions of the apothecary, soothed his wounded spirit, and closed his wakeful eyes in sound and invigorating sleep.

One morning he awoke from a tranquil slumber, which had continued from the forenoon of the preceding day. The birds without were singing in full chorus; the sun brightening his chamber walls; and a crowd of sparrows pecking at the casement. Carl

rose from his bed instinctively, and threw open the window, and leaned out. The freshness of the breeze that fanned his pale brow seemed to infuse in him a new life. The green and sunny fields, the trees, bending and quivering, as if to keep time with the music that filled their branches; the sloping hills carrying the eye and imagination to that blue distance, which is the country of hope; all seemed to enter, with magical influence, into the very depths of his soul. His breath came freer and stronger; his bosom rose with a sensation of power that had long been a stranger to it; and he felt his veins tingle with pleasure, as the current of life ran boundingly through them. Love, that lives in a paradise of the fancy, is inseparably associated with the beauties of nature; and the idea of his lost Ida rose in the midst, like a spirit. The river, whose bitter waters had hitherto seemed to roll between them like another Acheron, was half hidden by flowers, and the wantoning birds dipped their wings in it as they fluttered past. Carl's cheek glowed, and his eye brightened as he gazed upon the picture before him of mingled illusion and reality; and turning away with a firm step, he proceeded to arrange his dress, and prepare for a sortie into the world.

Liese, although a skilful doctress, was but little acquainted with the mysteries of the action and reaction that take place between the mind and body; and the resuscitation of her patient seemed to her like the effect of enchantment. She, however, persuaded him to remain two days longer under her care; and then ventured timidly to ask him whither it was his intention to direct his steps. This was the most

embarrassing question that could have been proposed to Carl Benzel.

"All places," said he, with a sigh," "are nearly alike to me. I cannot, in the meantime, return to Aix-la-Chapelle, and I know not where to find the friend whom I go to seek."

"You mean the daughter of Madame Dallheimer?" said Liese archly: "but never start, for it was by no sorcery that I discovered your secret. Your mind and your lips were busier during the fever than you may now imagine, and I think I can tell what is your present situation as well as yourself. You have lost your fortune at the gaming-table; but at your age, and with your capabilities, that is no great matter. Your mistress has been spirited away from you; but a little bird has whispered in my ear at least the direction they have taken." Carl caught her suddenly in his arms, and almost smothered her with kisses.

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My life was nothing," said he, " I scarcely thank you for the gift; but oh, Liese! how can I repay you for the hope that life of life-which you have now given me?"

"Not in that way, certainly," replied the marketgirl, pouting, as she re-adjusted her cap. "I have seen the day when you broke me a basket of eggs without doing half the damage! But come, that is a trifle in what way do you propose to travel?"

:

"I have a friend in the town, baron Wolfenstein, who would willingly accommodate me with money, and perhaps accompany me in the adventure."

"Alas! you forget the length of your illness. The baron, I happen to know, has been gone many days; for when you raved of him as your friend I endea

voured to find him out. Know you any other to whom you could apply?" Carl's eyes fell beneath the clear, proud-looking glance of hers.

"It is needless to conceal it," said he; "the re spectable friends of my family have abandoned me, and my comrades were merely associates in folly, who possess neither the power, nor perhaps the will, to assist me." Liese was silent for some moments.

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"Were I a man," said she at last, while her glad eye flashed with enthusiasm 1; were I a man such as you, I would care neither for the favour of friends nor the malice of foes. I would hang my sword by my side, and sling my guitar upon my shoulder, and with a high heart and lightsome look go forth to follow my mistress over hill and heath, and through wood and valley. There is no peasant in all our father-land so churlish as to shut his door against the minstrel, and no cottage maid so insensible that her heart may not be opened by the twang of the wandering guitar."

"And at last," said Carl mournfully, and yet half yielding, in spite of himself, to an impulse, which in youth sends the current of the blood dancing through the veins, "suppose me at length arrived at my destination-suppose me at the feet of the heiress of Dallheimer

"In her arms! in her arms!

"Would she do less than spurn the outcast and vagabond, who came to beg her love and her charity in a breath?"

"You a man!" cried Liese, "ha! ha!" and her laugh rang through the old house. "You presume to kiss the lips of a pretty girl like me! Were you in rags, Ida Dallheimer would clothe you; were your way-faring feet torn with brambles, or stung with