sun could be seen! There was not a cliff
nor crag, not a mossy slope, not a grass bank, they did not know; and
now, as they looked, all the past moments of pleasure were crowding upon
their memory, tinged with the sad foreboding that they were never again
to be renewed.

"That's the Riesen Fels, Nelly, yonder," said Kate, as she pointed to a
tall dark rock, on whose slopes the drifting snow had settled. "How sad
and dreary it is, compared with what it seemed on Frank's birthday,
when the nightingale was singing overhead, and the trickling stream came
sparkling along the grass when we sat together. I can bear to part with
it better thus than if all were as beautiful as then."

Nelly sighed, and grasped her sister's hand closer, but made no answer.

"Do you remember poor Hanserl's song, and his little speech all about
our meeting there again in the next year, Nelly?"

"I do," said Nelly, in a low and whispering voice.

"And then Frank stood up, with his little gilt goblet, and said,

'With hearts as free from grief or care,
Here 's to our happy--'"

"Wiederkehr," cried Hanserl, supplying the word so aptly. How we all
laughed, Nelly, at his catching the rhyme!"

"I remember!" sighed Nelly, still lower.

"What are you thinking of, Nelly dearest?" said Kate, as she stood for a
few seconds gazing at the sorrow-struck features of the other.

"I was thinking, dearest," said Nelly, "that when we were met together
there on that night, none of us foresaw what since has happened. Not
the faintest suspicion of a separation crossed our minds. Our destinies,
whatever else might betide, seemed at least bound up together. Our very
poverty was like the guarantee of our unity, and yet see what has come
to pass Frank gone; you, Kate, going to leave us now. How shall we
speculate on the future, then, when the past has so betrayed us? How
pilot our course in the storm, when, even in the calm, still sea, we
have wandered from the track?"

"Nelly! Nelly! every moment I feel more faint-hearted at the thought of
separation. It is as though, in the indulgence of a mere caprice, I were
about to incur some great hazard. Is it thus it appears to you?"

"With what expectations do you look forward to this great world you are
going to visit, Kate? Is it mere curiosity to see with your own eyes
the brilliant scenes of which you have only read? Is it with the hope
of finding that elegance and goodness are sisters, that refinement