Waterbury evening Democrat., 1904-06-06


 ment came the aunt put on her haavi- est mourning She always wore her mourning for best. WalteS was ex- tremely dapper in frilI skirt richly plaided tie, cane and juvenile der by. As for Ottilie, she looked like q blooming rose.
 The aunt started them very early. so that they might have good seats, and indeed in the tent put up for the enter tainment on the race track ground they had places on the front row. Tn the re- lief ensuing after her perilous passage of the crowded corners and the street crossings the aunt answered Walters questions about the tilting with more than her ordinary coherence and calm She said that young men dressed aa knights rode around the circuit carry ing long poles. As they trotted past they tried to catch on them the rings hanging from a horizontal bar at one aide of the circuit.
 Whoever got the most rings or his pole received a wreath Of roses. and with this he crowned her he chose aa queen of the Revels.
 Ottilie turned to watch the knights az they rode in. There were perhaps twen- ty of them, all young, pAcrusesquely dressed and decently mounted with the air rather of masAueraders than of knights.
 Among these was young man with heavy plume, dressed in black vel- vet costume, rather too large, and rid- ing stout gray cob, evidently cars riage horse.
 Some one behind the Wolfgangs rel marked that she guessed that man in black velvet wouldn't have to choose any queen, and her comment attracted Ottilie's attention to him. She nearly started with excitement. It was Sigur1 Bhaer. Ottilie was breathless with sua- pense and exhilaration when he trotted by and tilted his pole, and when he got six rings more than anybody else and was loudly applauded she could hardly lift her eyes from pride,
 As he rode around the ring in the sec ond turf, for 1ll the knights had three turns, he continually cast searching glanees among the audience.
 Walter waved his cane jpbilantly iu the air. It arrested the young mans attention, and his glance fell on Ot- tile. She was too confused to smile or even to meet his happy look of ad~ miration. She glanced radiantly away, and when she could look back again he had ridden past, but she was certain he had known her.
 He turned his pole nervously the sec- ond time and came off with only one more ring than he had before. This sut him behind two of the other play CTS, but the third time he aimed we'll and amid applause reached four mora than any one else.
 The trumpet sounded for the end Of the contest The knights all rods around again past the pole and as th6 champion went by the king of com1 merce handed him a wreath of rosess The band played Hail to the Chief 2 the audience cheered, and there was breathless pause.
 The victor turned his horses head and trotted clumsily across the circuit to where Ottilie was sitting between the aunt and Walter.
 He dismounted a little heavily and said nervously, q want to give you this"
 Ottilie took off her hat, and he laid the wreath on her yellow braids above her mantling face and sparkling eyes.
 Everybody applauded OttiIie won- dered what she ought to say to tho young man As Cor the aunt. it was lucky that her senses were all some what purblind and in haze of bewiI- derment or else she would have been dazzled to prostration. Walter alone remained self possessed amid these honors.
 "Might come back and bring car- riage to take you homer said tha young man. The aunt answered him hurriedly in German, which he seemed to understand, and he led his horsx away behind the curtain.
 In few minutes he returned, look< ing much more familiar in his low cok lar and i'll fitting citizens dress.
 He marshaled Walter and the aunt now in state of htnllke perturbation. before him, took Ottilie's hat, gaya her his arm and conducted her, ross crowned, blushing and radiant, out be- tween the lines of the impressed audi ence to livery hack waiting at the curb.
 In~the carriage the atmosphere be- came much less charged The young man talked of Batavia and how attach@. ed to the place he had become. though he had lived there only a few years.
 He drove them to little beer garden where they sat at a green painted tabge and ate supper and drank each others health among maple trees and rubbed oleanders.
 It grew dark early. The aunt went to sleep, and Walter amused himself with white mice in a hanging cage from the beer garden lattice. Young men and girls began to come iu and or-s der lemonade and foaming beer and promenade in the lamp lit shade of the place. casting occasional ad.niring glances at Ottilie and whispering how she was queen of the Revels. A harp and two violins came out on the pa vilion and played the Beautiful Blue Danube'' waltz and Schubert's ttSere-