THE MOTHER'S REVENGE.

BY THE AUTHOR OF HIGH-WAYS AND BYE-WAYS."

THE rose of the village, the lily of the valley, or any other epithet of the same beautiful and modest order, means always the prettiest girl of the hamlet. The title, however, implies the possession of more than one attribute; for there is infinite justice in rural distinctions, and rustic eyes consult honest hearts before they give their suffrages. The 66 rose " or lily" must be amiable as well as lovely; and then in the sweet triumph of her simple nature the synonyme holds good.

66

Agatha Engelmann was the only child of Franz, the richest miller on the banks of the Neckar, and she was in all ways worthy of her pre-eminence over her kind-heafted and unenvious companions. Besides her beauty, she possessed quite as much goodness and far more gracefulness than any of them. Nature is never vulgar. The infant, fresh from her hands, is a model of good taste and elegance. The movements of its little limbs, its delicate fingers, the soft, clear, blue-white of its eyes, their silken lashes, the melting circle of the iris, and the exquisitely fine skin, are all hers. The babe has come into the world upon her credit, and it remains for man to pervert and disfigure it.

Agatha was the most sportive and graceful of village children. Every one admired her, and her parents doated on her. At the age of seven she would climb her native hills, and pass whole days in that mysterious enjoyment of existence known only to children. Who can forget the vague and expansive bliss of childhood? Yet there may be some who have never known it-some whose very entrance into life has had no morning-whose delicate and injured spirits have never risen to a sense of pleasure. Injustice and privations have been the tutelar giants of their nurseries and many a deep-drawn sigh in after years has told how every fairy tale was spoiled! An unhappy child is, beyond comparison, the most unwholesome of all anomalies; a harsh parent the most odious of moral malformations. Happiness is the main point of education, and indulgence is the chief element of happiness. Yet a certain degree of restraint is absolutely necessary. It sweetens liberty, and is essential in bringing about the very contrivance of new enjoyment.

Perhaps it had been better if our little Agatha had gone earlier to school; for when at length the task of teaching her to read began, it was hard to say whether the village pedagogue or the light-hearted child was most to be pitied. She was little better than a harnessed butterfly; he badly suited to guide her winged movements; and as a matter of course she made little or no progress in either reading or writing so the grave and somewhat surly-looking master shook his overloaded head, and prophesied that the little maiden would be a dunce.

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Many a wiser man than Herr Hormüth of Siegelhausen has been deceived in these matters; for many a precious infant suddenly stands still, and many a dull one as suddenly pushes forward. Adaptation is the secret. Speak at once to the taste and inclination of the child, and you will have an answer. Agatha saw nothing in her alphabet half so pretty as flowers, birds, and sunshine; and she therefore endured the monotonous sledge hammer of instruction, without once having her attention roused so far as to make her ask what it might mean. In the school-room she was half asleep, and, at all events, dreaming. But as

soon as she felt the freshness of the young grass, while the breath of the new-mown field fanned her innocent face, she was awake to the minutest attractions of nature. The violets could not hide themselves from her; and she carried whole handsful home in her bosom to her mother. Now, Franz Engelmann, being a thrifty man, and turning all his possessions to the best account, reserved two rooms of his spacious residence for lodgers; and the notable house-mother of the mill kept them so neat and comfortable that they were seldom tenantless. Those airy apartments looked out upon a delicious landscape, which the Neckar intersected, carrying one's thoughts away with it somewhere beyond the Rhine and its mountain horizon. What a restless and impatient river this Neckar is !-quarrelling with every rock that rises to its surface, and fretting itself to death with useless but most harmonious murmurings! How often have I moralized, as I paced its romantic sides, or marked it from my hill-top elevation, and thought it a fit emblem of the human mind-for ever moving onwards to some great goal, yet irritated by every pebble of a circumstance that impedes its progress! How often did poor Agatha gaze on it in her young womanhood, as if to see the depth of her own sorrows within it!

But I must turn from this lingering contemplation, and tell the effect of sixteen summers on the warm cheek of the miller's daughter.

Is it, however, necessary to describe the petals of the lily or the calix of the rose? Must I say that Agatha's hair was long and silken, her complexion rich, her eyes bright and beaming, with soft dark fringes to lengthen and to shade their twilight rays? Cannot it be imagined, without my telling it, that the homely German jacket could not entirely conceal her sylph-like figure, nor repress its budding symmetry; nor any other equally unbecoming article of peasant dress mar the natural grace of every movement ?

Il nous faut un temoin de ce que nous valons, said an old French countess some centuries ago; and I perfectly agree with her. Beauty must reflect itself in a thousand varieties, and ascertain its own image in the minds and hearts of others before it becomes thoroughly conscious of its own existence. We shall see whether the beauty of Agatha Engelmann was afforded an opportunity of self-appreciation.

It was the Kirchweich, or church-consecration, an annual festival in honour of the patron-saint of the village-church; so the diminutive and little-used sanctuary of Schlierbach was dressed up with wreaths and emblems suited to the taste of the rural congregation. The schoolmaster's son and daughter, Karl and Gertrude, the early playmates of Agatha, were intrusted with the arrangement of this display of fanciful piety, subject however to the approval or dissent of a personage of great significance-the parish beadle, bailiff, or principal cocked-hat of the commune. Gertrude implicitly deferred to the decisions of this important functionary; but Karl took the opinion of Agatha on every individual point of decorative taste. But on what possible point of taste, sentiment, or feeling would Karl have dreamed of appealing to any other mortal tribunal? In fact, poor Karl loved Agatha with all the awkward sincerity of country affection, but he never could muster up courage to tell her so. His honest heart panted and heaved with the burthensome secret, but it kept it close; and he watched over the sweet girl with more than a brother's care, anxious to do, and more anxious to anticiJune.-VOL. I.. NO. CXCVII.

pate her bidding: His sister more than half-guessed the state of his feelings; but, in the natural propriety of her own mind, she forbore any allusion to the subject either to her brother or her friend.

And now the village maidens had put on their white gowns, coloured aprons, and smart handkerchiefs; their gloves also; and their hair was plaited and braided with all imaginable ingenuity; and they each carried in their hands a hymn-book and a folded white pocket-handkerchief. The youths had disfigured themselves as much as possible by trying to look their best; but their hay-making faces more than halfneutralized the overpowering effect of their hideous hats, and the supremely ill-fashioned articles which completed their bodily costume.

I remember having seen the groups of mingled gaiety and gravity passing by, as I stood upon the terrace that overhung my little flowergarden close to my bird's-nest-looking cottage, and feeling rather inquisitive as to the incongruities of thought that were in existence among those below me. Whether religious rites or music and dancing were predominant I cannot venture to determine; but there is in those continental pictures of pleasant piety a close association with innocent pleasures that is extremely touching, and that it would be grievous to separate.

After twelve o'clock, by which expression I mean after dinner, there was to be as much merry-making and waltzing at the mill as a violin, a base, and a flute could set in motion; and I witnessed something of all this from a grassy elevation, to which I insensibly strolled, on the hill-side which formed my pleasure-ground, just above Franz Engelmann's hospitable dwelling. Every one seemed happy partners were bespoke; and various groups were busy with plans of amusement, for no people, perhaps, have so many as the rural classes of Germany. Many a pair of rustic lovers thought it happiness enough to be together, and agreed upon a walk in the woods as the very best employment of the joyous hours. Many an old couple looked on and smiled, and moralized on the marvellous similitude between the pleasures of the present generation and the past.

As for myself, I could not help sighing over the probable mischances of individual happiness; and I felt assured that the aggregate of unchequered good would fill but little space in after years. But I would not for the world have broken, even if I could, the thread of enjoyment which bound the present to the future. As I gazed and mused, I thought there was one among the party at least as mournful as I was myself disposed to be. The general gaiety of the scene did not seem to inspire Agatha with her usual good spirits. I thought I had never seen her look so serious, or move with so little buoyancy. Why was this? Did she feel herself alone in the bright assembly? What had checked the boundings of her young heart? And why did Karl stand aloof, half concealed by the tree against which he was leaning, his arms folded across his breast, and his cap slouched over his eyes?

I resolved to witness, if I could, the explanation of those unpropitious appearances, and this from an interest of a better nature—at least I think so than mere curiosity. The riddle seemed solved by the following conjecture. Karl had possibly declared his attachment to Agatha, and she had refused to appropriate it to herself. Yes, surely, poor Karl was writhing under the cramp that binds up the strength of the heart-the pang of disappointed love; and Agatha, without being

able to guess the extent of his sufferings, was conscious of having inflicted pain, and she was sorry for it. I gave myself credit for quickness of perception, as I came to this conclusion. But suddenly the whole train of feeling that led to it became confused. The portly miller, in all the plenitude of self-complacency, and carrying a pipe full a yard in length, came forth from his house, accompanied by a person whose whole air and appearance seemed greatly out of keeping with the scene, and whose approach produced a visible agitation in the manner of the two young friends. I then recollected having heard, some days before, and with something like regret, that Franz Engelmann had let his two rooms to a rich student, who was likely to occupy them during the spring and summer. The handsome and flashily dressed young man, therefore, whose appearance had made such a warm welcome glow on Agatha's downy cheeks, and which had banished Karl as instantly from the scene, was Gottfried Wilmar!

He lounged carelessly forward until near the bench where Agatha was sitting, and then threw himself gracefully, as if more by accident than design, at her feet. I started up with undefined auxiety, and an incipient foreknowledge of ill, on seeing this. I could have believed that it was a Upas tree, and not an Acacia, that was bending its playful foliage over the little group. The whole scene lost its charm for me. Like Karl, I left the spot; but not like him, poor fellow, to feed on consuming thoughts, in some depth of shade and solitude that might at once nourish and conceal them.

Unfortunately for Agatha, her weak but loving mother was firm in the belief that her beautiful and only child was born to be a lady; that she would marry above her station in life; and so fulfil all the prophetic day-dreams of maternal ambition, rare in the Germans of any class, but most so among the rural tribes, who feel a pride and dignity of place, quite apart from those degrading yearnings for superior rank, so common to all classes of English society below the very highest, which is alone exempt from the national taint, merely because it can look no higher.

"Is not Agatha the prettiest girl to be seen in all the village round? And does not every one admire her? Who can say what may not happen?"

Thus argued Frau Engelmann with her husband, on the expediency of receiving Herr Wilmar as a lodger; and Franz admitted, in the pride of his heart and in the plain dealing of his understanding, that no one could say what might, or might not, happen. So he took the matter with easy gravity, and the three months' payment in advance for the lodgings in very good part.

Gottfried Wilmar was clever as well as handsome. He was only twenty years of age. But then he was old in the practices of the world, and deep versed in all the subtleties of the school of cold-hearted licentiousness, in which he was entitled to a high degree. Complete master of that language which goes readiest to the heart of an inexperienced girl, his seductive eloquence and well-feigned enthusiasm were in almost every case irresistible. Were they so in this one? We shall see-and, alas! too soon.

Wilmar had many University friendships; for he possessed abundantly those qualities which young men find so attractive in each other.

He sang, played, rode, fenced, and drank-all the first well, the last deeply. Pre-eminent in his intimacies was his brother-in-law elect, Eberhard Von Heinthal. This latter, sharpened by anxiety to secure his wealthy companion for his sister, had not failed to see the possible danger to his friend's pledged allegiance, in the attractions of his host's daughter; and he rallied Gottfried on his sudden resolution of turning hermit in the month of May, and having chosen the mill as his place of refuge. But Gottfried parried those attacks with skilful hypocrisy ; and baffled, if he could not remove, the fears which inspired his friend's remonstrances. The hideous clatter of the incessant wheel seemed to have no chance of disturbing his meditations. Study and retirement were Wilmar's decided taste. All Eberhard's expostulations were twisted and untwisted; and at length tied into a hard knot, with one decisive monosyllable. The little word no is always able to destroy the best train of argument that ever was invented by reason, interest, or

common sense.

And we must now hopelessly resign our gentle Agatha to all the perils of the unequal contest which she entered on, under the treacherous guise of an opening friendship. We must see her young, ardent, and ignorant heart exposed to the besetting sins of vanity and self-love; while the influence of flattering, yet arrogant superiority reigned supreme over her humble and confiding nature. Love in this form is a dictator, a monster, and a tyrant. There is no sweet equality of giving and receiving. It is all taking. Many a timid entreaty is suppressed; many an impulse of genuine feeling hushed into a half-breathed sigh. It is all dominion on one side, all fear on the other. There is no reciprocity, and of course no confidence.

I would, but cannot, save poor Agatha! The moral malaria that surrounded her was sure of its victim; and she at last consented to fly with Gottfried to the mountains beyond the Rhine. This was removing to the extreme limits of her world. She must leave her home, her companions, and her parents; and return no more! Poor, delicate, and deluded Agatha! Earth was crumbling beneath her feet; heaven was hiding itself from her. But it was too late to pause. Yes-this last sacrifice must be made. What! though early recollections of happy innocence were whispering to her in mournful voices-though filial affection trained its tendrils round her heart? There was but one answer to all these-it was too late!

During the interval between the decision of the morning, and the evening of her project's execution, Agatha was restless and downcast. Her mother was sitting in the opposite side of the window recess; and ever and anon she looked up from her perpetual knitting to gaze on the wasted countenance of her child. Agatha's eyes at length met those of her mother, and confusion spread its guilty blush across her pale but lovely face.

"Why do you colour so, dear child?" said Bertha Engelmann. "Why will you not tell me, your own mother, what makes you so pale and sorrowful of late? You used to be gayer than the bird of spring, and fresher than the rose. Tell me, my darling, what has happened to you?" "Do not distress me, dearest mother," replied the unhappy girl; "do not weary me with so many questions, for I cannot answer them, and they break my heart. Leave me to myself-as you have always done."