n and his wife. The chaplain
said a short grace, when the Baroness, with an uneasy look, glanced at
her husband over Edward's shoulder, and said, in a low whisper--

"My love, we are thirteen--that will never do."

The Baron smiled, beckoned to the youngest of the clerks, and
whispered to him. The youth bowed, and withdrew. The servant took the
cover away, and served his supper in the next room.

"My wife," said Friedenberg, "is superstitious, as all mountaineers
are. She thinks it unlucky to dine thirteen. It certainly has happened
twice (whether from chance or not who can tell?) that we have had to
mourn the death of an acquaintance who had, a short time before, made
the thirteenth at our table."

"This idea is not confined to the mountains. I know many people in the
capital who think with the Baroness," said Edward. "Although in a town
such ideas, which belong more especially to the olden time, are more
likely to be lost in the whirl and bustle which usually silences
everything that is not essentially matter of fact."

"Ah, yes, Lieutenant," replied the Baron, smiling good-humoredly,
"we keep up old customs better in the mountains. You see that by our
furniture. People in the capital would call this sadly old-fashioned."

"That which is really good and beautiful can never appear out of
date," rejoined Edward courteously; "and here, if I mistake not,
presides a spirit that is ever striving after both. I must confess,
Baron, that when I first entered your house, it was this very aspect
of the olden time that enchanted me beyond measure."

"That is always the effect which simplicity has on every unspoiled
mind," answered Friedenberg: "but townspeople have seldom a taste for
such things."

"I was partly educated on my father's estate," said Edward, "which was
situated in the Highlands; and it appears to me as if, when I entered
your house, I were visiting a neighbor of my father's, for the general
aspect is quite the same here as with us."

"Yes," said the chaplain, "mountainous districts have all a family
likeness: the same necessities, the same struggles with nature, the
same seclusion, all produce the same way of life among mountaineers."

"On that account the prejudice against the number thirteen was
especially familiar to me," replied Edward. "We also dislike it;
and we retain a consideration for many supernatural, or at
least inexplicable things, which I have met with again in this
neighborhood."

"Ye