The Brothers of Gowhenen. 1 6 1 



ful manhood, when they walked under the old walnut trees and 

 poured out their young hearts the one to the other. 

 " * What wouldst thou, Karl ?' she said at last. 

 " * I am faint, my Louise sinking. I have much to say to this 

 good man. Send me some wine.' 



" He closed his eyes as she turned to leave the room, and muttered 

 mournfully, * It is over it is over ; and, oh, at what a price it has 

 been purchased ! ' 



" Suzanne brought some wine. I assisted him to carry it to his 

 mouth ; and he almost finished the contents of the goblet, before he 

 would allow me to remove it. His lips clung to it with the eager- 

 ness of a famishing babe to his mother's bosom. As Suzanne left the 

 room, he motioned me to draw my seat close to his ; and, with one 

 hand seizing mine, with the other he pointed vehemently to the 

 door 



" * You saw her? he said ' Louise '? ' 



" Yes,' replied I, * I did ;' startled by the sudden change from the 

 passive languor of debility to the vehemence of passion. 



" * For her I bartered my soul ! Nay, never cross yourself, man 

 time enough for that when I have told you all.' 



"His pale cheek flushed,, and there was a lurid flickering light in 

 his glazing eye which showed that the stimulus he had just taken had 

 powerfully affected his weakened frame. 



" * I had a brother,' he continued. ' My brother Franz. Him you 

 never saw ; he died before you were born. Oh, my poor Franz ! 

 my brother ! How I loved him and he loved me too dearly, very 

 dearly! His happiness was mine, and mine was his. Whether my 

 rifle or brother Karl's carried away the prize, it was still ours; and if 

 Franz and not I happened to be the conqueror in our holiday games, 

 I helped to bear him in his triumph prouder and happier than he. 

 "' How happy I was then ! In the long winter nights sitting with 

 my old father and Franz and Louise our sister as we used to call 

 her talking over the business of the closing day, or anticipating that 

 of to-morrow. How often in the summer evenings have we sat in 

 this very sunshine, quivering through the linden just as now, laugh- 

 ing in the mirth of a sinless heart. I love to think of it ; it almost 

 makes me forget what I am an old man dying in his sin, after hav- 

 ing clung to what he purchased by that guilt to the very last hour. 



" * It was long before I felt the temptation, and e 1 felt it long be- 

 fore I knew that I was tempted. Day after day, I could not tell why, 

 I felt less happy with Louise, when Franz was there. When we were 

 alone, IJwas happier than ever ; but even then there was a constraint 

 upon me I had not known before. Yet I loved to hear her voice, 

 even when she chid me as unkind, and, putting her arm in mine as 

 she looked up laughingly in my face, asked what my cousin Louise 

 had done to offend me. Oh, my God ! I soon knew why I was so 

 changed. 



" * It was the feast of St. Nicholas, I remember, and the Burschen 

 had assembled from Wasen and Andermatt in the target-ground yon- 

 der. Louise was there. She sat at the root of the old beech tree by the 

 river side. You see it from the window, though my old eyes cannot. 



