slab in one corner bears the simple subscription,

MARIA. 1820.

But at this I have often observed that the good lady of the house never looks; and once during the sermon, I saw the squire while listlessly gazing upon it, allow the tears to glide down his cheeks as though he was a child.

There's a summer-house at the end of the nut walk, so hidden by bushes and winding paths, that it is hard to find the entrance, a low, squat-looking kind of a place, built in the Dutch fashion, with four windows, one in each side, and with a dome on the top; it stands close by a pond, and is all grown over with ivy. Indeed, when you arrive at the door, you have to remove the clematis and damask rose twigs with your hand, ere you can obtain an entrance. On the walls are numerous names commemorated both with pencil and knife; and in particular, under a true lover's knot, are deeply cut the letters M. and H. It is a standing joke at the squire's table between himself and the amiable hostess but I never could get to the bottom of it-only if any of the children or the company should by any chance make even the most distant allusion to their having been near the summer-house during the day, the squire immediately calls out,

"Let me have a glass of that port!- Mary, my love, do you remember the summer-house?”. to which the invariable reply is,—“Henry, dear, I thought you had been more sensible: you must not, indeed!" However, the gardens are truly delightful,-full of rich parterres, and clumps of flowering shrubs; with trim-cut walks of yew and beech, over which the various kinds of the pine tribe and the cedar of Libanus near their heads in sombre luxuriance. You may walk, I forget how many miles, in the garden, without going over the same ground twice in the same direction; but the gardener is apt to exaggerate on this head. There is enough variety to occupy the most fastidious for an afternoon, and beauty enough to occupy the lover of nature for a week.

Time passes happily and swiftly in a home like this; rides and field-sports, and the public business, take up the mornings of the gentlemen; the fine arts, the interchange of neighbouring courtesies, and the visiting of the village give occupation to the ladies. Hospitality, and the sweetest display of domestic elegance, shed an indescribable charm over the cheerful evenings passed in their society, the family are the honor and main stay of the parish, and, indeed, of many an adjoining one; while the house and grounds are the pride and boast of all that side of the county. Blackwood's Magazine.

CHAPTER I.

The little provincial town, S, is one of the most miserable holes in the Russian empire. On either side of the muddy main-street, there extends a row of wretched, tumble-down houses, the walls of which are all painted the same monotonous, ash-gray color, and the roofs covered with half-decayed planks, giving the entire group very much the appearance of a row of ragged beggars, in the act of demanding alms from the passers-by. Two or three neat little churches, that noble luxury of the Russian peasant, stand sharply out from the dark background of the picture. The old wooden markethouse, with its stores of flour and tallow, is reflected, in all its ruin, in a deep pond of stagnant water, that lies peaceably before it, and the ruddy noses of those devoted worshippers of strong waters, the municipal employes of the village,

are seen peering forth here and there from the low-browed houses around. To the left stands the brandy-shop; behind it, surrounded by a wooden paling, the little tower, used as a prison; and to the right, the decayed façade of a somewhat better description of building exhibits a black board, inscribed with the mystic word AIITEKA, i. e. Medical Hall, or pharmaceutical establishment, as it is now the fashion to designate what was once simply called an apothecary's shop.

It was on one of those gloomy autumnal days, when the heavens seem to frown on the earth, that a young man sat at the window of one of the above mentioned tumble-down houses, smoking his cigar with a disconsolate look. A neat smoking cap, with a gold tassel, was perched saucily on the top of his head, and the dressing-gown, cut in the shape of a long surtout, and faced with velvet, testified to the elegance of its proprietor,

"I don't recollect."

"The burgomaster!" said the provincial dandy, with some embarrassment. "Excuse my having been so troublesome, and permit me to cultivate your acquaintance further."

Hereupon he made the baron a low bow, and a still lower one to the burgomaster, who entered the room just at the moment. The inquisitive provincial then departed, and betook himself once more to a diligent inspection of the calesche; opened the doors to look at the inside, and at length went his way, taking with him a whispered curse for his impudence from the valet de chambre.

"For my nails."

He was an old soldier, who had formerly served in White Russia, and having frequently come

"Not at all bad, I assure you. 'Tis a pity she don't speak Russian better; she understands, indeed, what is said, but she can't speak herself."

All at once the young baron's countenance cleared up. The very mention of a pretty woman produces such an effect on us, especially when we are young. The town itself appeared less detestable to him than before; the dilapidated roofs of the houses acquired a picturesque appearance; a dry foot-path across the street immediately showed itself. The baron once more breathed freely. At this moment a Droschke stopped at the door.

bound to extol their superior mental and physical qualifications, to the great annoyance of the orthodox Russian ladies; indeed this formed the staple of his discourse.

The baron now called his valet, and began to dress himself. Half an hour before he had not deigned to bestow a glance on the clothes that had been laid out for him. He now carefully selected both coat and waistcoat, and took out of his dressing-case a neat breast-pin, which he fastened in a satin stock that he had carefully adjusted before the looking-glass. His toilette being now complete, he set out to take a walk through the town, directing his steps almost unconsciously towards the apothecary's shop. At first he merely seemed to study the exterior of the house, in which, in by-gone times, the nobles of the province had danced to the music of the Hebrews; then he read over, at least ten times, the inscription on the black board, AIITEKA; made a tour of the house; and finished by going down the street. He could not muster up courage to enter the shop without having some excuse; and having none, he would have given a great deal for some trifling ailment, to justify his having recourse to the apothecary's pots. Persons moving in what is called "the great world," have, notwithstanding their apparent self-possession, occasionally moments of indecision, of which, to do them justice, they are always heartily ashamed, and never think fit to confess; and so it was with the baron in this instance. But half an hour afterwards, he was once more steering his course for the apothecary's shop, attracted to it, as it were, by some powerful magnetic influence. He looked through the window-stopped - was on the point of entering the shop, and then passed on once more. His heart beat violently; but at length he grew ashamed of his want of resolution, and, like a thief discovered in the act of running

his new acquaintance, the provincial, just as the latter came out of the apothecary's.

"I have just been with Franz Iwanowitsch," said the dandy. "I told him you were here. He says that he was at the university, about six years ago, with a Baron Fuhrenheim."

"I live in a different sphere now; one changes without being aware of it."

"But you would guess, Herr Baron

you

"Well, then, he knows you."

"Most likely."

quaintance here."

"And who may that be?"

"You shall see in a moment. Hey, Charlotte!

"Yes."

"Oh! allow me just to look at it; what nice workmanship! Well, to be sure, what things they invent now-a-days; but money is the great thing to have. Charlotte Karlowna knows you too."

The apothecary's shop was neatly fitted up; all the usual pharmaceutical decorations, although plain and cheap, were arranged in the nicest order, and showed the proprietor's love of cleanliness. In the vestibule an old woman sat, pounding up something in a mortar; two ragged boys stood at the door, waiting for a few kopecks' worth of elder flower and peppermint. The apothecary himself, an under-built man, with a curly head and a good-humored expression, was seated at a desk, busily engaged in noting down the sale of his herbs and his modest receipts, with just as much accuracy as if large sums were in question. Happening to raise his head for a moment, he was astonished to see a well-dressed gentleman standing before him, apparently in doubt as to what he wanted to say.

ry.

"I am quite en negligeè," replied a most melodious female voice, that made the baron's heart beat quicker.

"Oh, never mind, Lottchen-there is an old acquaintance here."

The baron fixed his eyes involuntarily on the door; footsteps and the rustling noise of a woman's dress were audible in the next room. The footsteps came nearer and nearer; the hinges creaked, and in the door-way stood "The Apothecary's Wife.”

"What!-you here!" said the baron.

"How!- you here!" said the apothecary's wife, with a deep blush, and a half-suppressed sigh; "it is—it is a long time since we last met, Herr Baron!"

CHAPTER II.

We must now change scenes, and transport the reader to another small town in another land, and revert to another period of time, a few years previous to the events related in the pre

The baron became still more embarrassed; he could not tell the real object of his visit. At length he said

"I want some soda powders."

"We do not keep them; no one ever asks for any thing of the sort here," said the apothecary; and then he added, with a smile, "There is a great difference between this place and the capital: here people can only afford to buy what is cheap."

"It seems to me as if I had seen you somewhere before perhaps at the university?" said the baron, who had now recovered his selfpossession.

"Oh, yes — we were not personally acquainted; but I recollect you very well. You belonged to a 'Landsmannshaft,' and I was a 'Burschi,' and, besides that, we were attached to different faculties."

"Exactly."

The town to which the reader is now invited to accompany us, bears not the slightest resemblance to that described at the commencement of this story. In it an appearance of activity and youthful animation pervades every thing. Young men are sauntering about the streets, chatting together; others, with note-books under their arms, hurry along to listen to the voice of learning in the schools; and from behind the snow-white window-blinds of the houses, pretty faces, in all the bloom of youth, may be seen watching the movements of the passers-by.

Let us pass on into the next room, the walls of which are occupied from the floor to the ceiling by books of every possible size and kind of binding. On the lower shelves are huge folios, representing, as it were, the solid foundation on which learning rests. In the middle of the room stands a long writing-table, completely covered with a confused mass of books and papers. This is the study of the learned German professor, and its disorder forms a striking contrast to the pedantic coquetry observable in the guest-chamber. Next to the study is a little room, in which the professor rests from the fatigues of the day; and at the end of the suite is the sleeping-room of his daughter, a blooming girl of fifteenher father's pride and the idol of all the students. In the back building which faces this room, are a few small chambers, fitted up most economically, and destined for the occupation of students. In comparison with this building the modest dwelling of the professor is a Circean palace.

Such of my readers as have been students at a German university, will involuntarily smile at the recollection of the furniture of their former dwellings; but they will most probably sigh, too, at that recollection, for which of them would not joyfully exchange all the luxuries of a royal palace, for the ragged chairs and the rickety sofa on which his smart Burschen clothes lay about in confusion -- and for that narrow chamber in which he was young, and still full of hope and ardor, of love and illusion? How much of life may be found in the student's room-what deep signification attaches to it! How much genius and folly, how much of the sublime and ridiculous, are here blended together! In one corner, a human skull and bones; here a heap of gaudy Burschen caps; there a pipe-rack, with the pipes presented by former fellow-students. Rapiers, jack-boots, with the inseparable leather breeches; the loose leaves of a notebook lying peaceably alongside the fag end of a dry compendium, as if consoling one another for their common destiny, of being made subservient

the table and on the floor bottles and glasses, crumpled cards, broken cudgels, a thick cloak of doubtful color; and seated thereon, with outstretched nose and an air of importance, a white poodle, the student's most diligent scholar, now watching his master's doings with sagacious eye. In the first Semester of the year 18-, a newly-arrived "Maulesel”* took up his quarters in the above-mentioned students' lodging-house. This was no other than the young Courlander, Baron Fuhrenheim. In due process of time he was transformed from a "Maulesel" into a "Fuchs"-that is, a student of the first Semester (in old Trinity College, Dublin, a junior freshman, or "gib"), and he therewith acquired his right of citizenship in that fantastic world, in which seriousness and folly are so blended, that they seem inseparable.

When the baron had seen every thing that was to be seen, had got drunk at the reception commers, mounted the colored cap with a hole in it, paid his college fees, and proved the strength of his wrist with the sabre, only one thing more remained wanting to convert him into a perfect student, and that was, that he should fall in love. The baron was no spoil sport- he shyed nothing: he was equally ready to drink with the topers, to fight with the bullies, to play with the gamblers, to read with the bookworms, or to idle with the idlers. But this very facility deteriorated from the independence of his character, and lost him, to a certain extent, the esteem of his comrades, which is generally secured by a determined and well-marked line of conduct. But this defect was in Fuhrenheim more than counterbalanced by a poetic warmth of feeling, an enthusiasm for the sublime, and a quickness of conception that overcame with ease all obstacles. To fill up the vacuum above hinted at, the baron was not obliged to travel far in search of a proper object. Opposite to his window, on the other side of the courtyard, glistened a pair of snow-white curtains, from behind which peeped forth occasionally the blooming face of a girl of fifteen, with large dark blue eyes, shaded by long silky lashes, and with an expression of youthful innocence, tinged, perhaps, with a slight shade of romantic melancholy. Fuhrenheim could, from his windows, overlook almost all her movements.

Early every morning he saw her tie on her apron, arrange her cap, and put her books and works into a bag, and then hurry off to school, timidly casting down her eyes before the staring glance of the students she met in the street. On

* Literally a mule, but here means a student fresh from school.

† Literally a Fox.