Kyffhausen (for he had just come down it) well enough. And there were the cottages with their gardens and grass-plots much as he had left them. Besides, the lads who had all collected round him, answered to the inquiry of a passenger, what place it was, "Sittendorf, Sir."

Still shaking his head, he went further into the village to look for his own house. He found it, but greatly altered for the worse; a strange goatherd, in an old tattered frock, lay before the door, and near him his old dog, which growled and shewed its teeth at Peter when he called him. He went through the entrance which had once a door, but all within was empty and deserted; Peter staggered like a drunken man out of the house, and called for his wife and children by their names, But no one heard him, and no one gave him any answer.

Soon, however, a crowd of women and children got round the inquisitive stranger with the long hoary beard, and asked him what he wanted. Now Peter thought it such a strange kind of thing to stand before his own house, inquiring for his own wife and children, as well as about himself, that, evading these inquiries, he pronounced the first name that came into his head: "Kurt Steffen, the blacksmith ?" Most of the spectators were silent, and only looked at him wistfully, till an old woman at last said: " Why, for these twelve years he has been at Sachsenburg; whence, I suppose, you are not come to-day." "Where is Valentine Meier, the tailor?" "The Lord rest his soul!" cried another old woman, leaning upon her crutch," he has been lying more than these fifteen years in a house he will never leave.

Peter recognised in the speakers, two of his young neighbours, who seemed to have grown old very suddenly, but he had no inclination to inquire any further. At this moment there appeared making her way through the crowd of spectators, a sprightly young woman, with a year-old baby in her arms, and a girl about four, taking hold of her hand, all three as like his wife he was seeking for as possible "What are your names?" he inquired, in a tone of great surprise. "Mine is Maria." "And your father's?" continued Peter. "God rest his soul! Peter Klaus, to be sure. It is now twenty years ago since we were all looking for him, day and night, upon the Kyffhâusen; for his flock came home without him, and I was then," continued the woman, 'only seven years old."

The goatherd could no longer bear this: "I am Peter Klaus," he said, " Peter, and no other;" and he took his daughter's child and kissed it. The spectators appeared struck dumb with astonishment, until first one, and then another began to say, Yes, indeed, this is Peter Klaus! Welcome, good neighbour, after twenty years absence, welcome home!"

JOHAN VON PASSAW.

Ir is related by Martin Luther, that a certain nobleman had once a young and beautiful wife, whom he had the misfortune to lose, and he buried her. A short time afterwards, as the baron and his page were sleeping in the same chamber, there came during the night the spirit of his deceased lady, and leaning over her lord's bed as if she were in the act of conversing with him. This was witnessed only by the page, who saw her also come a second time, and then, unable to disguise his fears, he inquired of his master, what was the reason of a woman's figure, arrayed in white garments, appearing every night at his bedside. His lord replied by saying, that he was in the habit of sleeping all night long, and that he had seen nothing. But on the ensuing night he kept himself awake, as well as his page, and behold! his deceased wife made her appearance. Her lord inquired who she was, and what it was she wanted. She said she was his own wife, his faithful housewife. He then inquired, "Are you not now dead and buried?" She answered, "Yes! it was on account of your curse, and your many sins, that I died, and was compelled to die; but if you be sincere in your wish to have me restored to you, I may again become your faithful housewife." Her husband answered that he should be content, provided she could do so. She then explained and forewarned him, that he must not curse as he had before done, for that then she should again be doomed to die. He promised that he would not; and she was restored to his arms as formerly, managed his house, eat and drank at his table, and bore him several children.

Afterwards it happened that her husband was one day entertaining a few guests, and having supped, he requested his wife to bring some excellent gingerbread that they had, from a little chest in another room. It was some time before she returned, when her husband becoming impatient, uttered the fatal curse, and she disappeared in a moment. Thinking she had gone out again, he went and sought for her in her chamber, but she was not there. There indeed he found part of the dress she had on : the other part had disappeared, a small portion only being met with in the chest over which she had been leaning; but his wife was nowhere to be found, and was never again seen.

A SISTER'S RECOLLECTIONS.

TO A. H.

BY MARY HOWITT.

Come now, a little while

Grant me a gossip's right, and I will fill
Thy spirit with the pleasures of our youth.
We were playmates together; from one book
We drew the lore of childhood; on one couch
We slept; one joy, one spirit seemed to stir
And animate our being. Two buds upon
One stem, two birds within one nest were not
More like than we.

. I.

Oн might I but recal

To thee the days gone by;
They have not perished all,
Their memory could not die.

Thou wilt retrace the past

With feeling like to mine,

And backward vision cast,

As on a sainted shrine

Round which our youthful faith did lasting garlands twine.

II.

See'st thou a grassy glade

Within a leafy wood,
Or bowery dwelling made

In forest solitude?

-A river's sedgy side,

Or lone heath brown and still,

Or landscape stretching wide,

Seen from a breezy hill,

That does not all thy soul with former pleasures fill?

III.

Does not the slight harebell

Recal the ruin hoar;

And Croxden's abbey cell

Rise to thine eye once more?
Does not the shrouding yew

Around the falling tower,
Bring Chartley to thy view?

And scarce a tree, or flower

But has a tale for thee of some delightful hour?

F

IV.

Live for a little while

In Needwood's mossy shade,
Its memory may beguile,

Where children we have played.
We've wandered 'neath the grey

And knarled oaks around,

And listened thro' the day

To catch the ticking sound

The grasshopper would make from out the leafy ground.

V.

Our garden and our flowers
Thou wilt remember long,
How many summer hours

We spent their sweets among;
Our home, so free from care;
How could we it resign?

And its pleasant windows, where

The moon-beams used to shine

Through the screening pear-tree leaves, and the wreathing jessamine.

VI.

Dost thou not call to mind

That southern porch, and feel

As we have felt the wind

Thro' the honied woodbine steal?

The fir-trees, do they rise

In vision, and recal

The violet's downcast eyes,

And the ivy on the wall,

The sun-flowers, and the Indian-wheat with its plumed coronal?

VII.

We've rambled many a day

To many a pleasant place;

Time cannot steal away

Their memory. Thou wilt trace

The blessed hours we spent

In sunshine and in shade;

How, pilgrim-like, we went,
How joyously we strayed,

Where birds, and sun, and flowers, all paradise had made.

VIII.

And, if now 'tis thine to be

In any lovelier spot,

Is it not dear to thee

As these are unforgot?
Thy rambles on the shore,
The lone and hiddẹn bay ;

The ocean's ceaseless roar,

The graceful billows play,

And the mighty vessel bound on its joyous homeward way?

And the colouring of by-gone days on our passing hours is laid.