A German Pompadour

n bedstead, a heavy chair lamed by four legs of various heights, a rickety table steadied by a pad of rags beneath one foot, a long chest of painted wood: such was the sleeping-room of

st of her proportions. Her hair was deep brown, nearly black, save where the light showed a tinge of red, a glint of gold. It was almost too abundant; like a rich, virulent weed it grew triumphant. Her lips were thin yet perfectly modelled, a long gracious curve; the upper lip a trifle thicker and short below the sensitive, wide-open nostrils. The brow serene and white, heavy over the deep-set blue eyes. And the eyes! No one could ever describe Wilhelmine von Gr?venitz's eyes, or no two persons could agree concerning them, which comes to the same thing. They were blue and deeply set, the lids heavy, the lashes short and thick, the eyebrows strongly marked, arched and almost joining over the nose. But these are mere outward presentments, and tell nothing of the spirit living in those marvellous eyes. This was a thing of vital force, for ever changeful. Even the colour of her eyes was varying, and yet there was a curious persistency of gaze, a power of fixing. The Güstrow citizens called Wilhelmine von Gr?venitz witch and sorceress because of these strange eyes; they said she could freeze men with a look, that she had a serpent's gaze that grew cold and petrifying, when she chose, and yet those who loved her (they were not many) knew that her eyes could dance with laughter like a child's, that they could soften to tenderness, could glow with enthusiasm over a song or poem. But these softer moods we

e; though this morning, as she sat on the edge of he

ty and untidy, with one peasant girl to do all the work. Wilhelmine hated this misery. She dreamed o

-thick, ugly stockings-to darn, stuffy respectability!-A timid knock came at the door, and Wilhelmine called the permission to enter, in a voice s

r the enthusiast. The head was grotesquely oversized, though essentially beautiful; but it seemed like some sculptor's masterpiece placed upon a ridiculous figure, or some fine boulder rock balanced absurdly on a narrow, crooked flower-stem. The face arrested attention immediately; it was beautiful, finely chiselled and of classic line, without a hint of deformity or disease on its glowing health. The eyes were large,

g her usual song of poverty and marriage? Come, beloved one, never frown at me so; you know it hurts me when you frown, more than

antic words of the deformed girl often irritated her, and she found that spoken wisdom of Anna's infinitely wearisome, yet she was seldom

n to occupy you, but I have got nothing, and I want so much! Believe me, all those things you call amusement and luxury are necessities to me. I want to lie soft in sweet linen, to wear rich clothes, to dance, and-yes, Anna,

only happiness. Wilhelmine, some day perhaps you will have the things yo

nd I will not ask for mo

Wilhelmine, and alwa

all that life holds--' She opened her strange, grasping hands

he narrow, ill-paved street, in whi

h a flourish, blowing a shrill blast on a horn. He was accoutred in the blue and silve

the entire return of the exorbitant postal rates went into their pockets; still the people had cause for gratitude to the Taxis

e the small German town from its habitual slumberous dullness, and a

id not ask if he brought a letter; indeed, that was unlikely, but news! news of t

had left Wirtemberg with his army, but there was a letter in his bag from Wirtemberg for the Fr?ulein von Gr?venitz, and perchance she would be able to tell them. At mention of this a busybody ran up t

ed their open curiosity. Did they expect her to read her brother's letter aloud to a gaping group, as though it were a public gazette? But she wanted the letter, and wished to get it be

grunt and sarcastic comment from the crowd. She gained the door of her mother's house and, spri

ademoiselle Marie von Stuben, a lady of Rottenburg (a small town on the borders of my Lord Duke's territory). I have been appointed Kammerjunker at court, and shall not be returning to Güstrow for some time. I write this news so that thou mayst break it

lemen here, and that I will endeavour to arrange a marriage for thee, more fitting than the alliance of our sister Sittmann. The great thing is tha

nge that thou shouldst take part in these court gaieties. A thousand greetings to our mother, a

Wilhelm von

s, Ober

nburg sur

tem

Nov.

s German here at court; it is considered as peasants' speech! As thou wilt see, I do not

ent's gaze, and could hold animals powerless as long as it was directed upon them. She was thinking deeply-swiftly-and perhaps it was at this moment that Wilhelmine von Gr?venitz vowed her soul to worldly success; her indomitable will directed to the goal of worldly power at all costs and at all hazards. She rose shivering. It was cheerless and cold in her room; the momentary gleam of the

ence sprang out the brightly painted leaden figure of a knight, to smite the chime wit

d a painter's soul. That morning Wilhelmine noted nothing of all this, though on another occasion she would have taken pleasure in it, for like most sensuous natures she had a keen feeling for colour, and the grouping of a peasant crowd appealed to her artistic eye; but that day she was so absorbed in her own dreams that she did

ll of Friedrich's letter, pretending she had received it on her way home. Or, if her mother discovered the earlier delivery of the post, she would say the angry attack in the market-place had made her forget to mention it. This plan met with success, and Frau von Gr?venitz remained in the pleasurable throes of a talkative woman wit

the cathedral, she saw Pastor Müller's fat form added to her mother's assemblage. H

between the tombs and pushed open the heavy church door. The cathedral nave was dark. Wilhelmine peered about and, thinking there was no one in the church, turned to go, when from the organ, far away near the high altar (or wh

nunciation of some terrible striving, as though the organ chanted the litany of some perfect calm reached through an agony of endeavour and suffering. Wilhelmine's eyes were wet, while she leaned her head against the back of the oaken pew. To her music was the only form of prayer, and it never failed to move her to a vague aspiration, she herself knew hardly what. Her dreams of the world faded, and she was only cognisant of the dim church and

soul of the organ. 'Ora pro nobis, peccatoribus,' she sang, and surely the Mother of God must have listened to so wonderful a tone prayer? 'Nunc et in hora mortis nostrae, Amen.' And the organ wandered on repeating the 'Amen' again and again in a solemn, dreamy deepening of chords, which the beautiful voice followed and answered with that certainty and ease which belong to a few of the world's singers when they sing to the accompaniment of one with whom they are in perfect musical and sympathetic understanding. The music came to an end and the church seemed doubly silent, with the painful stillness one sometimes feels when a son

,' and whose youth they whispered had been spent at the court of France, till Madame de Maintenon had set his enemies upon him, and he, being proved a heretic, had fled for his life across the frontier and wandered northwards. The course of his wanderings brought him to Mecklemburg where, hearing that the schoolmaster at Güstrow had died, he had sought the post and it had been granted him, because of his proved learning

arply concerning the music he played. 'Chorales are all very fine,' he said, 'but surely oftentimes you play music from the abominable Mass, not fitting indeed in a holy place set apart for the worship of the Lord according to our pure faith?' 'Ah!

smile and a sigh as he looked at her radiant youth: 'Et rose, elle a vécu ce que vivent les roses, l'espace d'un matin; for,' he said, 'the flowers of the world fade quickly, and thou art surely a flower, my little one.' He read her the works of Racine, Corneille, Molière, all of which learning she assimilated rapidly, and with an accuracy which delighted the old scholar. Sometimes, of an evening, he would keep her with him long after school hours, and one winter he took it into his head that she must learn to dance. He tied an inky tablecloth to her shoulders to serve as a sweeping garment. It was infinitely droll to see the two, mincing, bowing, and pirouetting in front of the mirror. 'You must see yourself curtsey,' he said, 'if you would learn the real movement.'

ties, and it were best to talk with Monsieur Gabriel and devise some means of procuring sufficient money to pay the cost of her journey to Wirtemberg. Then, if they could hit upon a scheme to propose to Frau

old man stretched out his left hand to take the paper, while his right hand remained on the organ keys, and as he read he played a few chords. 'Hélas!' he murmured as he ref

morrow! I have not told my mother yet, and I have come to you for advice.

er? she also has none. Does Friedrich think you can fly southward on a swallo

ne, 'help me!-you have always helped

w long has this letter been on the road?-sixteen days-and you could not travel so far without r

ew by his last words that

she answered i

us remain pure of heart, tender, generous while we are poor or sad, but

tted bellows-blower, whose presence they had forgotten, had ceased to pump air into the organ, and there came only a p

iling.' She threw back her head and pressed her fingers on the keyboard: this ti

i de ma

z à ma

ps chanson

er gardons

i, la v

che à l'

rai les do

r gardant m

love them teach them to give their genius to the world. Well, my child,' he continued, 'I will find the money for you, but leave me now. Be satisfied, your song has done its work; I will send you on your search for the flowers, and God grant you may not find the tears too soon!-I do not love that song with its ref

y separated at the door; the old man going up the Klosterstrasse to the schoolhouse, while Wilhelmine walked rapidl