LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXIII, Issue 2245, 13 June 1881, Page 4

LITERATURE.

. THE WOLF'S DEN. (Continued.) ' I am the young Coant Erlody von Wolf, at your serv:co,' said T. ' Can I conduct you to my father, tho Baron von Wolf P* ' Politely modern, my golder »hairel youth,' said tho President; ' poli'ely ■poken; yes, I bring you a cousin, from Paris, Mademoiselle Marie Lucille de Ziohy.' I felt all the blood in my body go to my faco. " Ziohy !" that name had belonged to mother. A couain from faris and coming to our Wolf den! * Cousin Krlody do:8 not seem glad to see mo !' said tho young lady in the moct sweet, frank, pleasant voico, ' but I have come - I have come, to make you a visit You must make -really, you must make the best of me.' I suddenly felt I wai dressed in sheepskins, that my boots of untanned leather were ragged, that my hands wore brown, coarse and dirty, that I was a savage I thought of Castle Wolf; what a place for a lady! and such a lady ! For as I stole a look at her I saw a slender, delicate, tall girl, with smooth, blaok hair folded back from her white brow; dark blue eyes with long hvhea; a red mouth full of mischief and smiles. She was dressed In dark blue oloth, with bright buttons down the front, and a little hat, with a long blue feather floating baok from her heavenly face. I noticed her hands, they were so small, long and lithe, and her gloves fitted her like her skin. She looked like no woman that I had «ver seen in my Jife, but she did look like — like, what ? Yes. Like Ludwig's pictures ! When I had shown the President's driver the road up to the castle, I told his Excel lenoy, with a bow, that I would spur on my pony, and go to prepare my father for the visitors.

I saw Frere in the courtyard and told him the astounding news, leaving him to break it to tbe Baron, while I dashed up to my room and washed my face and hands and combed my long hair. Then I called to Ludwig, who was painting in his turret. He, too, made himself decent, and we both reached the door as my father was helping the young lady to alight. She did not notice ns much, being taken up with our dogs, Czilagy and Maros, two splendid wolf hounds, who had barked at every visitor we had ever had before, savage beasts, but who now were absolutely kissing their gloved hands, so sweet an--l gentle was she. 4 Oh ! what lovely dogs, what dear dogs,' ■aid cousin Lucille, who evidently knew how to win man and beast.

Baron Wolfgang von Wolf was a gentleman, a man of sixteen quarterings, and although he had just been killing a sheep, he did receive the lady with a stately civility. We were more like sheep than wolves before her!

She, however, soon gave me her hand, and looked up in Ludwig's handsome, melancholy face with a serene composure which was reassuring, and said, ' forgive me for shaking hands with the dogs first; then, as Ludwig smiled, and evidently approved of her, she blushed most becomingly and accepted his proffered arm with a little tremble, which put them at onco in the proper position of man and wife, of protector and protested.

All we were told was that this lady was oar distant! cousin, thai we were io make the oastle as comfortable as possible for her, and that we were to ask no questions, I saw the Baron, later, taking rhe whip to Folohaza, who, with the privilege of an old servant, was growling over the new comer; ip I asked none.

My mother's room, long closed, was unlocked for the guest, and she came down in a few moments, lovely, fresh, smiling, .jßonjgosed. praising the prospect, praising ' everything. It was not long Before Lucille had won Folehazi'a conflden.ro, and the dinn. r table boasted again a table oloth. Old trunks and table linen were unlocked, and the Baron's ■liver chest yielded its treasures, the sound of hammer and chisel was heard in the rooms, and I became an upholsterer in her ■ervice, nailing np old tapestries and curtains. Euoille insisted that Ludwig should fresco her room, and she bought muslin at the • village, which soon flattered in the morning breeze, from her casement, giving a refined air to our donjon keep. Oh, how she liked the dogs, the puppies, the ponies ! and what a horse-woman she was! a little timid at firat, but soon a seat across country that was marvellous. She would not hear of our making a change in our toilettes. ' No,' she said ; * those sheepskins were so picturesque, and Butted the landscape.' She soon 'got out of Brnst the fact that he loved a young girl at Erdioszegh ; she taught him how to write and fold his love letters ; she reproved him for drinking too much ; she corrected our Trench, which was somewhat archaio ; ahe absolutely trimmed the I aroa's beard! A young girl from the village was introduced -as parlor maid, or waiter, or what not, and Luoille soon had her, in cap and apron, waiting upon the Wolves at table. We were all be changed from animals to men. A woman's hand, what was it not ? to the sad, half-civilised, and neglected boys, who had grown up in the old stone castlo, without the sight of a woman. found joy in onr noble landsoape, happiness in our oat of door life; she Deemed always to be discovering a bit of carving, a majolica jug, an old mirror, or carious chair, which was before unknown and unnoticed. She brought in taste, that beat of visitors, and love, and beauty, and refinement to our den. The Wolves in her presence forgot all their grosßness, The young girl carried with hsr an atmosphere which repelled while itallnred, and although alone in oar Wolves' Den, she was as safe as If she had been in the moon.

Something of the boy mingles in the character of Buch a woman as she. The Bosalinds, the Violas of great Shakspoare give us the key note Her jolly companionship with üb, for a season, shut the dangerous door of sentiment. I had no mysterious fear of her, as I had heard that men had of tha women whom they loved, and although her Parisian fineries, and pretty boota and gloves, charmed my senses, like a new perfume, I still charmed my senses, like a new perfame, I still felt very oapable of gaily criticising her gowns and ribbons, if they did not altogether suit her surroundings. Ludwig told her that her favorite pink dress was horrible, she was equally frank in despising his one broadcloth, church-going badly made suite. We were comrades as well as couuns, and joked eajh other freely. But Pandora's box had been opened, and the trouble's were sure to come out.

'Lucille goea away to-morrow; she goes back to Paris to be married,' said the Baron one day, as she had departed to the kitchen to instruct Felehoza in the manufecture of • new salad. She had been with us all summer—a golden summer for the Wolves. I Lit as if an icy heart had taken the place of that warm viscera which before had beaten In my bosom, and I looked np at Xndwig. He was as pale as death. Ernst could only speak. 4 So the sunshine goes oat of the Wolves' castle, does it ?' said he. ' Yea 1' said the Baron, gloomily, ' Luoille has been very charming. She will make a noble wife—an ornament to the rich and famous family which she enters. Women love luxury. They must have it. She belongs to your mother's blood. She loved luxury. I could not give it to her, We are poor/ Why had she came here—this daughter of the gods ? Why had she entered onr mountain fastness ? That we dared not ask. We only heard and remembered that last sentence—'We are poor.' The Baron permitted no questions. It was Ernst who had the courage to apeak to her of her marriage. It was a family arrangement, aho said, and that she supposed it was all right. She seemed to be, aa we were, ignorant of all that most immediately concerned herself. The Zichys were a queer family, as we could not but reflect. And then I wandered off up the high hill that looks over to the valley of the Danube, and communed with my own heart, and was still. I for the first time knew that I waa a man, and not a boy ; that I loved her, and must win her, else my heart would break—and yet what had I to offer her. Aa I came home at nightfall I heard in the wood near me two horsea coming slowly along. I stepped behind a mighty pine tree, and hid myaelf. It waa Ludwlg, and with him Lucille ; he had his hand on her bridle rein; she waa weeping bitterly. He waa telling her that he loved her ; and oh ! how manly and handsome ho looked as he bent his pale, grey face over her.

*Oh ! Ludwig! Ludwig !' said the girl looking up through her tears, like Anslauga, ' I have loved you every hour Bince I cam<to Castle Wolfgang—but it cannot ba ; it cannot b?.' Part Second. The wind and rain beat heavily about Oasllo Wolfgang. The autumn came with aigh3 and tours to the Valley of the S&rviu. Our grapes were all gathered, however, and tho vintage had teen better than usual; but the Baron, my father, 'seemed wrapped in .s greater gloom than ever before, for the bailiff had seized some of his wine in payment of an old debt. The Baron, alas, was no manager. I heard high words batween him and Luil wig one night. ' The hillside vineyard and the white vine are mine,' said Ludwig, ' and you have never allowed mo the yield. My grandfather left it me in his will and you have kept it from me. Now I want it. lam going to Paris ; lam going to study pair.t ing, and I claim what is mine.' ' Yes, going like a fool to follow Lucille,' said my father. • Love has always been the rnin of ns. If I had not loved your mother I should not now be the man who broke his parole, the Austrian offioer who surrendered his trust; the disgraced and proscribed nobleman. AH for that face (which you have got, Ludwig) I gave up that which a man should hold sacred above all things—his honor—and now you turn upon me, ruined that I am, and ask me to give you money tr go to Paris, that yon may commit the folly of trying to win Lucille from her promised husband. No I stay here, and when I die it shall be yours. Go, and I curse you.' Ernest had gone off, we knew not where ; perhaps to see again that fair face at Erdioszegh, which he had once fallen in with, on one of our visits to Frere Franz, at the convent. Lucille had been away three months, and Ludwig had grown every day more pale, more haggard, more sombre. We had not told each other our secret, but in our long mountain rambles, in our silent hours over the canvas, in the turret, it told itself. Sometimes he would put his hand on my head, and smoothing my hair, Ludwig would say to me : *' Poor boy ! poor boy I" as he walked np and down the room, and I would take hia hand and kiss it, for I loved this brother, this grave,, silent, noble brother, better than all in the world, or in heaven, save the image of our dead mother; better than all I loved Ludwig. But in our silent misery we would go together to the chapel and kneel thare for hours before the Image of the Blessed Virgin, as Frere Franz had taught us to do when we were little boys. One day Ludwig fell into a dead faint on the stone floor of our turret room, and when we brought him to life he was in a raging fever. Old Felehaza and I bathed his head and gave him the simple beverage, made from the sweet verbena, and she wept as she saw how he looked like his mother, but the old Baron glared at him with his red eyes and said that 'he was shamming—the fever, he had it not—no,' and yet he paced the room like an angry wolf all night. The next week Ernst came home, and we had a long consultation.

I had more learning and moro knowledge of business than my brothers, and in the Bale of our wines I had become acquainted with a wine merchant of Pestb, who had once offered to send me to Paris on his business, Leaving Ludwig in the cure of Ernst and Pelehaza, I idiz Off to see mm one day, and after an hour's talk I was driving over the hills to a railway station on my way to Paris. The world opened its great walla for the boy of nineteen to look at, and the past and present mingled in a curious dream. Sometimes my mother came and encircled me in her arms; sometimes the old Father Ambrose, at the Convent, came and put a crucifix at my lips ; sometimes I saw Ludwig dying, and again I saw Lucille, the woman I loved—the woman he loved—and a great darkness oamo over me. It was in a beautiful salon in Paris that Lucille received me. She did not know me in my French clothes, my hair cut close to my head, nor should I have known her but for her voice, so pa'e, and sad, and shadowy ahe looked. 'Oh! Erlody! Erlody!' said she sadly; and she threw herself Into my arms and kissed me. Ihe first and the last time. Her mother came down—a fine French lady—all crepe, and very grand Madame Zichy. (To bt> continued,!)