s, who do the most wonderful and startling things while in
this kind of trance state, of which they are utterly unconscious when
they awake.

I hope this story will please my dear little Clara; it is called

THE ROSE CROWN.

"It was Christmas eve, and a cold winter's day. The flakes of snow fell
softly and thickly, and had already covered the earth with a white
cloak.

"At one of the windows of the large house that stands on the top of the
hill, where the purple violets first peep out in the spring-time, stood
the little Gottfried and his sister Marie.

"'Only look, dear Marie,' said Gottfried, 'how fast the snow falls! What
large flakes! They look like little milk-white doves.'

"'It is the Mother Holle shaking her feather-beds,' cried Marie,
laughing; and looking up towards the sky, and beckoning with her hand,
she sang--

"'Mother Holle,
Good wife Holle,
Fill the meadows fair and full:
Stay not, pause not,
Shake away,
Make the snow fall fast to-day.'

"'Oh! I can sing a prettier song than thine,' said Gottfried. 'Listen,
now. The good wife Katarine taught it to me;' and he sang--

"'See the snow-flakes,
Merry snow-flakes!
How they fall from yonder sky,
Coming lightly, coming sprightly,
Dancing downwards, from on high.
Faint or tire, will they never,
Wheeling round and round forever.
Surely nothing do I know,
Half so merry as the snow;
Half so merry, merry, merry,
As the dancing, glancing snow.

"'See the snow-flakes,
Solemn snow-flakes!
How they whiten, melt and die.
In what cold and shroud-like masses
O'er the buried earth they lie.
Lie as though the frozen plain
Ne'er would bloom with flowers again.
Surely nothing do I know,
Half so solemn as the snow,
Half so solemn, solemn, solemn,
As the falling, melting snow.'

"'Ah! thy song is sad, brother,' said little Marie: 'it makes me sigh.'

"As she spoke, a little boy, poorly clad, was seen coming up the avenue;
and Gottfried exclaimed--'Here comes Heinrich!' and running out of the
room, he presently returned, leading by the hand Heinrich, the little
faggot-maker, whose mother, a poor but pious widow, lived in a hut just
out of