MOTHS.
55
Roger, that is evident.
Vere did not  raise  her head from her lace-
work
perfectly upon bis stage.
The doubt hurt her cruelly, and did not stay
long with her, for her soul was too noble to
harbor distrust.    Yet at her ear Jeanne de Son-
It. had been written in the hamlet hut under j naz perpetually dropped slight words
the Dachstcinspitze, and was in pencil. After ; stories, shrewd hints,tkt all made him the un-
graceful opening compliments, in which no one | ter of adventures as varied and as little noble as
knew better than himself how to make the , those of any hereof amorous comedy Ever and
commonplace triviality of formula seem spon- ! again a chill sickening doubt touched her that
taneous and fresh, it went on:                               she, at once the proudest   aud the  humblest
' I have shot a^ nobler creature than myself;   woman in the world, had been the amusement
men generally do when they shoot at all.
Emblematic of the Napoleonic cause to which
Madame la Duchesse has dedicated herself,
of an hour to a brilliant but shallow persifleur.
She carried the gold goblet with the edelweiss
of the Thorstein into  her own chamber, and,
inasmuch as it has lived on carrion, and, though ] when quite alone, she burst into tears
golden it will be rotten in a day, or at best ! She never shed tears now. It had seemed to
stuffed with straw,I desire to lay it at the feet ; her as if '.hey were scorched up by the arid des-
of Madame Jeanne, where its murderer hasever oration of her life. They did'her good like
longed, but never dared, to prostrate himself. \ dew in drought. So much she owed Corrze
I offer the edelweiss to Madame la Princesse ! Corrze himself at that hourhaving taken
Zouroff, as it is. well known to be her emblem. ! leave at daybreak of the Imperial hunter and his
It has no other value than that of representing courtly companions, who were returning into
her by living at an altitude where nothing but ; Ischlwas walking*by his guide's side down the
the snow and the star rays presumes to share its ' face of the Dachstein toward the green Rauris
solitude."                                                               j range, meaning to go across thence into the beau-
He said, in conclusion, that his hunting-trip : tiful valley of Ens and descend next day into the
having taken up the five days which he had al- ! Maindling Pass between the Salzkammergut and
lotted himself for Ischl, he feared he should ; Styria. He was still at a great elevation still
see neither of them again until they met in | amidst snow and ice, and the Rauris lav below
Pans in winter, as his engagements took him ! him like a green billowy sea. There was some
.at once to the Hague, and thence to Dresden, edelweiss in his path, and he stooped and pluck-
where there were special performances in honor ed a little piece and put it in his wallet,
of one of the gods of his old faith,Gluck.              "O ice-flower, you are  not colder than my
" Very pretty," reflected the Duchess Jeanne ! heart," he said to himself. " But it is best to
as she read. " I suppose he reached the edel- i g: best for her. I will dedicate myself to you,
weiss himself, or he could scarcely have gathered : ice-flower, and of the roses I will have no more;
it. I suppose Vera will understand that part of j no'. n0 more of the ' lilies and languor.' Edel
the ' emblem.'"
But. though she thought so, she did not say
so: she was a courageous woman, but not quite
courageous enough for that. She gave the edel-
weiss and the note together to her companion,
and only said, with a little smile, "Corrze al-
ways writes such pretty notes. It is an accom-
plishment that has its dangers. There is
scarcely a good-looking woman in Paris who
has not a bundle, more or less big, of his letters,
all with that tell-tale suggestive device of his,
that silver Love, with one wing caught in a
thorn-bush of roses: he drew it. himself. You
saw it on his flag at the Kermesse. Oh, of
course it is not on this paper. He scribbled
this in some chalet of the Dachstein. I will
have my eagle stuffed, and it shall have real
rubies for eyes, and I will put it in my dining-
room in Paris, and Corrze for his sins shall sit
underneath it and pledge the Violet and the
Bee. Not that he ever will, though : if he have
any political faith at all, he is a Legitimist,if
he be not a Communist. But I don't think he
thinks about those things. He told me once
that nightingales do not build either in new
stucco or in old timber,that they only wanted
a bush of rose laurel. He is a mortel fantasque,
you know, and people have spoiled him. He is
very vain, and he thinks himself a Sultan."
All the while the duchess was studying nar-
rowly her companion as she spoke.
weiss, you shall live with me and be my amulet.
YTou will wither and shrivel and be nothing,
but you v ill remind me of my vow, and, if
others will rage, let them. To the ice-flower I
will be true as far as a man in his weakness can
be. Will that denial be love? Intheoldchiv
alrous days they read it so. They kept
j their fate though they never saw their lady's face.
The Duchesse Jeanne would laugh,and others
too."
And he went down over the rugged stony
slope, with the snow deep on either side, and
the green ice glistening at his feet, and the
woods of the Rauris lifting themselves up from
the' clouds and the gray air below ; and there on
Dachstein, where never note of nightingale was
heard since the world was made, this nightin-
gale, that ladies loved and that roses entangled
in their thorns, sang wearily to himself the song
of Heine,the song of the palm-tree and the
pine.
CHAPTER XXI.
The days went on, and the duchess made
them gay enough, being one of those persons
who cannot live without excitement, and who
make it germinate wherever they are. Carried
in her chaise- porteurs, playing chemin defer on
I her balcony, waltzing at the little dances of the
Vere, without any apparent attention to it, put j imperial court, making excursions in the pine
her edelweiss in an old gold hunting-goblet that j woods or down the lakes, she surrounded her-
she had bought that morning in one of the little | geif wjth officers and courtiers, and created
dark shops of Ischl; and the duchess could tell ' aroUnd her that atmosphere of diversion, revel-
nothing from her face,                                          \ Ty, and intrigue without which a woman of our
In her heart Vere felt a sense of irritation and   world can  no more live than a mocking-bird
disappointment. The note seemed to her flip
pant, the homage of it insincere, and his depart-
ure unnecessary and a slight. She did not know
that he wanted to turn aside from her the sus-
picion of a woman in whom he foresaw a peril
without a globe of water. But all the while she
never relaxed in a vigilant observation of her
companion; and the departure of Corrze baf-
fled and annoyed her.
She had had a suspicion, and it had gone out
us foe for her. and that to disarm worldly | in smoke. She had spent much ingenuity in
perils he used worldly weapons. Vere no more i contriving to bring Vere to the Salzkammergut,
understood that than one of Chaucer's heroines, \ after having disbursed much in discovering the
with straight glaive and simple shield, would i projects for the summer sojourns of Corrze;
have understood the tactics of a game of Krieg- I and with his departure all her carefully-built
spiel.                                   '                                     house of cards fell to pieces.    She did not un-
And why did he go?                                          ! derstand it; she was completely bewildered, as
She was far from dreaming that he went to j he had intended her to be, by the airy indiffer-
avoid her. The song of Heine did not mean to ! ence of his message to her companion, and his
her all that it meant, to him. That she had some ! failure to return from the glaciers into the val-
place of bis memory, some hold on his interest, [ ley. She regretted that she had troubled her-
she thought,but nothing more; and even that ! self to be buried for a month in this green tomb
she almost, doubted now; how could he write of  among the hills; but it wasjmpo.-sible to change
herio Jeanne de Sonnaz'
A cold and cruel fear that she had deceived
herself in trusting him seized on her; she
heard of him always as capricious, as unstable,
her imprisonment now. They had begun tbe
routine of the waters, and she had to solace her-
self as best she might with the Imperial court
esies, and with sending little notes to her friends.
as vai   ; who could tell, she thought?    Perhaps ; the sparkle of which was like the brightness of
she had only given hira food for vanity and for  an acid drink and contrasted strongly with the
few grave constrained lines that were penned
j by Vere.
One day, when they had but little more time
to spend on the Traun banks, she got together a
, riding and driving party to Old Aussee.
Aussee is quaint, and ancient, and charming,
! where it stands on its three-branched river; its
people are old fashioned and  simple; its encir-
cling mountains aud its dark walers are full of
1 peace and  solemnity.     When   the gay  world
breaks in on these quiet old  towns^ and deep
lakes and snow-girt hills, there seems aprofanity
j in the invasion. It is only fora very Utile while.
j At the first breath of autumn the butterflies flee,
| and the fishermen and salt-workers and timber-
hewers and chamois-hunters are left alone with
their walers and their hills.
The duchess's driving-party was very pictur-
esque, very showy, very noisy: " good society "
is always very noisy nowadays, and has forgot-
ten that a loud laugh used to be "bad form."
They were all people of very high degree, but
they all smoked, they all chattered shrilly, and
they all looked very much as if they had been
cut out of the Vie Parisienne and put in motion.
Old Aussee, with its legends, its homely Styrian
townsfolk, and its grand circles of snow-clad
summits, was nothing to them: they liked the
Opern ring, the Bois," or Pall-Mail.
Vere got away from them, and went bv her-
self to visit the Spitalkirche. The altar is pure
I old German work of the fourteenth century,
j and she had heard of it from Kaulbach. In
these old Austrian towns the churches are al-
ways very reverend places, dark and tranquil,
overladen indeed with ornament and images,
but too full of shadow for these lo much offend ;
there is the scent of centuries of incense; the
ivories are yellow with the damp of agek
Mountain suzerains and bold fitters, whose
deeds are still sung of in twilight to the cithern,
sleep beneath the moss-grown pavement: their
shields and crowns are worn flat to the stone
they were embossed on by the passing feet of
generations of worshipers. High above in the
darkness there is always some colossal carved or
molded Christ. Through the half-opined iron-
sturided door there is always the smell of pine
woods, the gleam of water, the greenness of
Alpine grass; often, too, there is the silvery
falling of rain, and the fresh smell of it comes
through the church, by whose black benches
and dim lamps there will be sure to be some old
bent woman praying.
The little church was more congenial to Vere
than the companionship of her'friends, who
were boating on the Traun, while their servants
unpacked their luncheon and their wines. She
managed to elude them, and began to sketch the
wings of the altar. She sent her servant to wait
outside. The place was dreary and dark ; the
pure Alpine air blew in from an open pane in a
stained window; there was the tinkle of a cow-
bell and the sound of running water from with-
out; a dog came and looked at her.
The altar was not an easy one to copy; the
candles were not lighted before it, and the day-
light, gray and subdued without, as it is so
often here, was very faint within.
" After all, what is the use of my copying it?"
she thought, with a certain bitterness. "My
husband would tell me, if I cared for such an
old thing, to send some painter from Munich to
do it for me, and perhaps he would be right.
It is the only mission we have, to spend money "
It is a mission that most women think the
highest and most blest on earth; but it did not
satisfy Vere. She seemed to herself so useless,
so stupidly, vapidly, frivolously useless; and
her nature was one to want work, and noble
work.
She sat still, with her hands resting on her
knees, and the color and oils lying on the stone
floor beside her untouched. She looked at the
dark bent figure of the old peasant near, who had
seta little candle beforeaside altarand was pray-
ing fervently. She was a gray-headed, brown,
wrinkled creature, dressed in the old Styrian
way. She looked rapt and peaceful as she prayed.
When she rose, Vere spoke to her, and the old
woman answered willingly. Yes, she was very
old; yes, she had always dwelt in Aussee; her
husband had worked in the salt mines, and been.
killed in them, her sons had both died, one at
KOniggratz, one in a snow storm upon Dach-
stein; that was all long ago; she had some
grandchildren, they were in the mines and on the
timber-rafts; one had broken his leg going down
the Danube with wood; she had gone to him,
he was only a boy, she could not get him home
any other way, so she had rowed lum back in a
A';,