LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XX, Issue 1494, 29 November 1878, Page 3

LITERATURE.

♦ —■ —• CHRISTMAS AT THE BARON’S. By the Author of “Geemah HomeLife.” ‘ Danes les grandw crises le occur se brise on se bronze.’—Bal/. ,c. Continued, After that ball at Court, when the young painter had boon presented, a change seemed to come over Mi* na She was mare serious, asked a thousand questions, was anxious and embarrassed, >et with the air of a pert on who shrinks from speaking the thought that fills t e mind, at length one day she said to Karl, ‘And my friend, Lidy Britannia—did you see her ? They toll me she is the rage. How did she look ?’ ‘ Beautiful.’ I 1 low cold you say it!’ I I am c Id.’ ‘ Why ?’ ‘Well, it doesn’t much matter. Do you know what the mauvaises langurs at Btolpenstiefel say ? It was written to mo by one tf my d ar kind friends to-day, and some old Idntxch Jia.se has scribbled the same to my amiable stepmother.’ ‘ Ah, you must not ask me why.’ ‘ H 'W can you give a thought to these unworthiness s ? They are too paltry, mean, and contemptible. Why not treat such infinite littlenesses with the scorn they deS' rve ! Jt pains me to think you entertain things ro beneath yonr notice.’ ‘ Hear his lordly se timents > As though they had dropped fr m. the beauti nl Lady Brntannia lierscl'! The lofty scorn, the cold disgust! That is all very well for youdemi-

gods, whose heads have already "struck the stars ; but I am a little human being, with nothing heroic about me, and I am amused to hear what the world says.’ * If you are amused ?’

‘ And you will be amused too. Fancy I they say the reason papa won’t return to Waldstein is because he is so desperately in love wit h Lady Britannia. The fun is, we made her promise to spend Christmas week with us. Fancy the face my stepmother will make ! And Mrs Digby’s mild unconsciousness ! But you don’t laugh. I thought you admired my English friend.’ ‘ I admire, but do nos like her.’

‘Because of papa?’ And Minna turned he>’ head back and laughed like a provoking child. ‘ That is all nonsense !’

‘Of course it is “too paltry, mean, and contemptible,” eh?—“infinite littlenesses,” nes't-ce pas, infinitely beneath my notice ?’ ‘ But some things a e not beneath notice, though it may pain one to notice them. If you breathe on a looking-glass, its polished surface will be obscured ; damn tarnishes silver ; pitch dedies. It is not to such puetile and unbecoming gossip as that which your fri ,-nds retail I sh mid pay attention. The wor d—your world —says bitter and scandalous things of Mrs Digby in connection with a young empty-headed fool—a dandy captain of Hussars, called Hand von Haften. ’

A large brush full of paint was dragged across Karl We net’s face. Minna’s flaming green eyes glared at him from behind the insult ; he heard the words,

‘ You lie !’ Wiping the bar of black paint from his mouth, he said calmly, ‘ Which is it you love ? The man or the woman ?’

* Both.’ ‘lf the woman proves false, you will still love the man ?’ ‘Yea ’ ‘ But if the man proves false, you will hate the woman ?’ ‘Yes ’

‘But your love for the man will be killed?’

* I shall be killed, Piide will be dea lin me—faith, loving-kindness. I may live in the flesh, but 1 shall be dead in the spirit.’ ‘No ; you will only be free.’ ‘What could I do with my freedom?’ ‘ Give it away. If ever the time comes, I will tell you how—to whom. Until then, keep it. It is a great gift to give. It is a grand card to play, So long as you hold it, life is not lost.’ Chapter VII. No lover is so exigc/int as an elderly lover. His vanity is involved in the matter ; and no passion is so relentless as oanity. Baron Waldatein was delighted whan his devotion to the beautiful Mrs I'igby became town-talk. The more people chattered, the higher he held his head, the tighter he buckled his waist, the mom he trimmed his moustaches and turned out his toes. But w’-en people proceeded to cackle about Hand von Hr.ften’s grande pasnion, the General’s elati- n began to subside. Men aud w m n, looking on (German men aud ; errnan women, but more particularly Borman women), could not understand that Mrs ! igby was utterly indifferent alike to the admiration and the cackle—that she took the admirati n as her due a tribute to which she had been accustomed all her life, and the gossip ran on altogether too low a level to reach her f;rs ; that she loved her husband mere tbau she loved any one *dse in the world, her beautiful self-included, and that Tack Digby did not so much as own that there were any other women about. A more devoted couple never existed, nor could a freer or more liberal union be desired by the most exorbitant soul. Captain Digby felt no surprise that other men admired a woman he himself admired so entirely. Grace Digby did not expect every man to be as perfect as Jack, bat nevertheless went through life smiling at its pleasures and follies, ready to take the world as it wagged. It may be believed that Baron Wa’dslein did not generally love Captain von Haften in those days. He watched him with angry jeous eyes. He watched Grace too. He was miserable if a day passed without his being joke! about his iiime. A fo 1 night before (, hnstmas he reminded Mrs Digby of her promise to spend a week wiih them at *>' a dstein She at once agreed to go He asked if th- re was anything he c mid do for her Yes; there was one thing, but perhaps he would not do it ? Not do it? He swore to do, to suff- r, anything she migh‘ ask Sae smiled, and said she would remind him of his promise at Waldstein. Karl, in his silent studio worked out a wild future, and watched Minna, Minna bided her time. The preparations for the ( hristrnas festivities w*nt on busily in kitchen and guest-chamber. Tendavs before the festival, Baron Waldstein, looking very much as though he had opened the oystershell with his sword, alighted in radiant triumph at his ancestral hall. Chapter VIII. ‘ You promise me, on your word as a gentleman, on the honour of your sword ? ’ ‘ I promise.’ And Baron Waldstein kissed Gra e l igby’s hand. Delighted to get rid of what his elderly vanity had been pleased to call a ‘ rival,’ he had almost fallen at Mrs Dig by’s feet when she had entreated him to vi-w, with a friendlier eye than he had hitherto done, Bund von Haften’s suit for his daughter’s hand. He wondered now why he had ever obj cted to the young man as a son-in-law. Political prejudices vanished like the morning mist, and arose coloured future began to dawn on the horizon of the elderly military Adonis. ‘ And I may write to him ? And you will let me tell Minna? It will be my Christmas gift to her.’ ‘ Everything shall bo as you wish.’ But before Grace tr.ld Minna, before she wrote to Hand von Haften, she had a word to say to her capricious little friend. Her large brown eyes had looked into the studio, and seen things there that others couhl not see.

Minna had met her without any of her former warmth. The old fond admiratn n, the mock title of Lady Britannia, were heard no more. The girl looked wan and sallow, her great hazel-given eves cold and harsh. Her face seemed as though all light and colour had been drawn out of it It was like a mask of stone, with a glittering shifting light behind. Karl had thrown over his former friends.

Asked of some red-h't young radicals to draw a wicked cartoon for their republican paper, he had refused with a sternness that roused their indignation. How could he insult his Minna’s father? h o w could he outrage and hold up to ridicule the class to which she belonged / Let the howling fools call him a renegade ; what matter so long as he earned a fum e that should set him far above their petty interests and abject aims, that would scat him amongst th« gods ? A man who was stronger than the hates, since be had conquered them. (To he continued.)