f some wood-nymph had visited me, and for a
brief space had borrowed the features of the woman I loved. In vain I
searched the grove. The vision was nowhere to be found. I went back
to the inn somewhat shaken up.

Several old veterans were seated in the barroom, smoking bad tobacco
and drinking a final bout. Their jargon was unintelligible to me.

"Where's your barmaid?" I asked of the inn-keeper.

His faded blue eyes scanned me sharply. I read a question in them and
wondered.

"She went into the garden to get a breath of fresh air," he said. "She
does not like the smoke."

It annoyed me. I had seen some one, then. What would Phyllis, proud
Phyllis, say, I mused, when she heard that a barmaid was her prototype?
This thought had scarcely left me when the door in the rear of the bar
opened and in came the barmaid herself. No, it was not Phyllis, but
the resemblance was so startling that I caught my breath and stared at
her with a persistency which bordered on rudeness. The barmaid was
blonde, whereas Phyllis was neither blonde nor brunette, but stood
between the extremes, and there was a difference in the eyes: I could
see that even in the insufficient light.

"Good evening, fraulein," said I, with apparent composure. "And what
might your name be?"

"It is Gretchen, if it please you," with a courtesy. I had a vague
idea that this courtesy was made mockingly.

"Gretchen? I have heard the name before," said I, "and you remind me
of some one I have seen."

"Herr has been to the great city?"

B---- is the greatest city in the world to the provincial.

"Yes," said I; "but you remind me of no one I ever saw there."

She plucked a leaf from the rose she wore and began nibbling at it.
Her mouth was smaller than the one belonging to Phyllis.

"The person to whom I refer," I went on, "lives in America, where your
compatriots brew fine beer and wax rich."

"Ah, Herr is an American? I like Americans," archly. "They are so
liberal."

I laughed, but I did not tell her why. All foreigners have a great
love of Americans--"They are so liberal."

"So you find Americans liberal? Is it with money or with compliments?"

Said Gretchen: "The one when they haven't the other."

A very bright barmaid, thought I.

Then I said: "Is this your home?"

"Yes," said Gretchen. "I was born here and I have tended the roses for
ever so long."

"I have heard of Gretchen of the steins, but I never before heard of a