The times. (Owosso, Mich.) 1882-1897, 1882-06-23

selves up 10 4 bold promentory where
red and pink rho~dodendrons blossomed
in brilliant %profusion. Gretel, always
fleeter and surer than her companion,
climbed rapidly to a still higher ledge
and brought back in triumph a beautiful
specimen of the pure and starlike Edel-
weiss with its strange woolly covering.
Her face was flushed with eXertion. Or
dinarily it was so pale and transparent
that he had sometimes compared her to
the Edelweiss, though he had never told
her so. Sometimes also, though not
habitually, he had seen a sunrise in the
Alps and his artist soul had thrilled, as
even an inartistic soul must, at sight of
that marvellous rose tint which touches
and glorities the cold, snowy peaks until
they seem to glow with life. OF such q
sunrise he thought now as he looked at
the flush on Gretel's cheek. He was
right. His artistic sense was by no
means lying as dormant as she had fan
cied.
What a beautiful world this is up
| here!'' she said.
IF only it might remain so! But soon
the winter will come and this happy sum-
mer be over, and there will be change
and parting, Gretel."
EYES," she said quietly.
The air, the place, the girl and the
flowers wrought a sudden mood in him,
a mood both daring and impractical
sis she formed of the white of the glaci-
ersP" he thought; can nothing thaw
her frigd hearth" Then aloud, 'But
need there be parting, Gretelp When
the cruel winter reigns here with its ice
and snow, there is another land where
q happy home and a bright hearth, and
love and good cheer await our COM
ing"
All, the sunrise glow was in her face
again! He saw it and triumphed.
Then she turned her full gaze upon
him without a trace of self-consciousness
or assimilation in it.
''Look at this Edelweiss, the child of
the mountains placed here by God to
bloom for Him. Do you not know how,
when the covetous tourist has torn it
from its native soil and transplanted it
to his own, in spite of all the care and
tenderness bestowed upon it, it droops
and dies in the uncongenial,soilp Shall
we be deaf to the lesson it teaches us,
my friendP No, l must live and die here
in my mountains. 1t would wrong us
both to do otherwise. Let us go down,
for l hear already the tinkle of the cow
bells"
"Neighbor Bachmann has moved to-
day to the chalet on the Dreizacken,"
said Reinhold that evening. lit is most
unwise. Why, Herr George Because it
lies in an unprotected spot, and an ava
lanche might at any moment sweep down
upon it. 1t has not happened for many
years, but the snow is ~treacherous under
this warn sun, and l would not trust
my life there
The next morning the artist sat on the
bench before the chalet sketching more
busily than he had done before since his
arrival.
Gretel came out with q small basket
on her arm. II am going to carry some
curds to Frau Bachmann and will return
by noon," she said.
He followed her with his eyes till she
disappeared over the meadow. An hour
must have passed and still he sat mus
ing. The morning was still calm and
clear aud only the distant tinkling of the
cow-bells fell upon his ear. Suddenly
he was startled by a dull rumbling. 1t
could not be thunder, for the sky above
him was ~cloudless. 1t grew louder and
clearer. ''Great Godr' he cried aloud,
''the avalanche! And" as old Reinhold's
warning flashed upon him with horrible
d~istinctness, ''Gretel has gone to the
dangerous spot"
With the swiftness of terror and de-
spair he followed in the direction she had
taken. Soon he came upon q group of
awe-struck peasants, who had gathered
at the first signal of the deadly messen-
ger, but too late to warn the threatened
family.
Bachmann's cabin with all its inmates
had vanished from sight, and in its place
spread a vast and p%itiless field of ice and
snow. Search was unavailing, as they
knew by pastexperience and silently adj
mitted to one another.
Gretel and her friends were laidto rest
like the seer of Israel, and no man knew
their sepulchre.
depressing his own grief, the artist en-
deavored to comfort the unhappy father
and brother in their overwhelming afflic-
ton.
"Your Gretel was like the pure Edel-
weiss" he said to them. at blooms in
beauty for a time and when its mission
is fulfilled God gathers it %painlessly to
Himself"
''She is IN angel of Paradise" said
Reinhold weeping.
Thus her simple life was ended, and
with the ''royal white'' of death on cheek
and brow she rested in the shadow of
the mountains she had loved.
AT the winter exhibition in London
there was one picture which attracted
general attention. It was q crayon head
of a pale, girlish face, with just a faint
rose flush on the cheeks like the glow of
sunrise on the summit of the Alps. Be-
meath it was written the name-kdel-
weiss.-Liuie n. Mercer IN our Cont
aeHt.
Running a Locomotive.
"Well, I've had a little experience in
running an engine,'' said q Long speci-