The Arkansaw traveler., 1885-07-25

MYTtllIa alone Qld not feel the over towering heat. Crouching by the fire, with her hands clasped about her knees, in the full sunshine, she was motionle<s, :, while her great black eyes explored the sombre colonnades of the forest.
 Time went slowly. The distant village clcck had sounded noon, then I o'clock, then ?, and the young gipsy had not moved. Those woods, those barren heights, those lines of fir trees descend ing the slope, seemed to held for her a deep. mysterious meaning.
 ' Yes" she said, l have known it for long time"
 who still slept with all his might, she rose softly and began so run. Her light feet scarcely touched the ground. She ran and ran, msunting the slope. Friedland raised his head calmly and seemed of a mind to follow her, but stretched himself out again as If overcome with lassitude Myrtills had disappeared in the brambles that fringe the forest. With bound she cleared the muddy ditch, where solitary frog was roaking among the rusnes Twenty minutes later she had reached the crest of the hollow rock, which com. mands the whole of Alsatia and the blue summits of the Vesges. Then she looked back to see if anybody was following Fritz, with his cap over his eyes, was still sleeping in the great green meadows so was Friedland, and the cattle under the tree.
 She looked beyond at the village, the river, the roof of their own farm house, where the pigeons were huttering, as small as swallows in the distance, and the little moss-grown church. where the good priest, Miiausse, had baptized her and then confirmed her into the christia1 faith. Then, turning to the mountains, she viewed the countless arrows of the fir trees standing thickly on the slope, like the grass in the fields. Before the magnificent spectacle the young gipsy felt her chest expand, her heart beat with an unknown power, and. resuming her fl ght, she sIrang into hollow carPeted with moss and ferns, to fad the shep- herds path through the forest. All her soul, all her wild nature shone forth in her face. She was transhgured. Her little hands clung to the ivy, her bare feet to the cletts in the rocks.
 She soon found herself on the other slope of the mountain, running, leaping, stopping abruptly to look at the objects about her.
 "I knew it," she cried. "The tree was here-the rock there-and the torrent roared below"
 Instinct guided her, and led by that wonderful force she came out at sunset on the treeless plateau of the Kohle Plaiz, where gipsies passing from Alsatia into Lorraine were in the habit of spending the night, swinging their kettles among the bushes.
 There, wearied out, her feet bruised, her little red petticoat torn by the briars, Myrtilla sat down at the foot of an oak She listened to the wind rushing through the lofty tree tops and was happy to be alone in that solitude.
 Night came. The stars appeared in thousands in the sombre depths of the sky, and then the risen moon shed its limpid silver rays down on the mountain side. Myrtilla laid her head on the earth and had almost yielded to sleep when distant shouts, ringing through the woods, aroused her. Bremen, Frita and all the farm people were searching for her Without an instants hesitation Myriilla began to flee deeper into the forest, paus- ing only from time to time to listen again The shouts grew feeble. Soon she could hear nothing but the rapid throbb.ng of her own heart, and pursued her path with less rapid step. Very late, when the moon had withdrawn her last rays, at the limit of her strength, she sank down h~,a She was three or four leagues from Dos enheim, near the sources of the Zinsel. Brem-r could not look for her there.
 It was broad daylight when Myrtilla awoke on the lonely mountain, under a messy old pine; thrush was singing above her, and another, far away in the valley, replied. The morning breeze shook the foliage like a shiver, but the air, already warm, was laden with thou sand perfumes of ivy, moses and wild 
 The young Bohemian opened pair of wonder-struck eyes and looked about her then remembering that she should not hear Cathrine calling again Myr- tilla, Myrtilla! where are you, you good she smiled and gave car to the thrush's song.
 A spring was buobiing close by the child had but to turn her head little to see the living water leap down the face of the rock and lose itself among the grass.
 Myrtilla was thirsty, but felt so indo- lent, so content to listen to the babling of the water and the thrush's song that she laid her little dark head down again, and viewing the sunshine between her eyelids.
 Il sball always be thus" she said to herself Il am lazy. It is the will of God"
 An odor Of bilbenies just then excited her pretty nostrils-
 There are some" she murmured. "l smell them"
 She was not mistaken the brambles were ftifI If them. Then m l0n cer hear.