tioned by its donor concerning the ap- | under the tree shadows; but Karin had pearance of the young mistress of Fogel- observed nothing. While Brunhilda näste. Soon after this the Countess Luitka von Rehnstjerna called on Karin. She was in her studio with her husband, and received her visitor there. The countess, who was a noble woman as well as a famous court beauty, remained over an hour, and went away charmed. stood pushing her parasol into the soft turf in a sort of vague excitement, she heard quick steps, and saw the Baron Johann walking toward her from the direction the carriage had just taken. Her first impulse, though she could not have given herself a reason for it, was to run to her mistress; but she was in a manner spell-bound by the approach of the baron. He was out of breath, and paused an instant in front of Brunhilda, and seemed about to question her; but after looking across the narrow sunny glade at Karin, he said, sternly, "Stay here"; and habit He came and astonishment held Brunhilda. "Well ?" said the king, when he met the Countess Luitka in the evening at a grand public fête. "Sire," exclaimed the countess, in an eager under-tone, "she is beautiful as a dream." "Yes, so my courier said. back beauty-mad. Well?" "She is an artist-a genius. There are not two pictures here"-glancing around the elegant walls-" that have the power, the originality, of those hanging on the walls at Fogelnäste." "You are sure she paints them herself?" Hearing unfamiliar and harsh footsteps, Karin, suddenly raising her head, saw a stout old man, with thick white hair and a very red face, standing in front of her. Karin, with the artist's quick eye for detail, observed, without then thinking about it, that while his left hand was gloved, his right was bare, and that a large ring on its third finger had slipped so that the "She is good as she is fair, and she stone was turned inward, and only an adores her husband." "Ah! Well ?" "She has a fine clear brain, active in many directions, though with one deficiency-a marked one. There is one subject of which she evidently never thinks at all." "And that?" "Is herself, sire." The king looked thoughtful. edge of it visible. His lips were working, but without articulated sound, as if he could not choose what word to speak first. There was little resemblance between Sigfrid and his father, and yet there was a likeness by which Karin saw, or rather felt, the baron's identity. She saw that he was violently excited, and though she was not intimidated, she was chilled with the instinctive conviction that something would now happen which she should wish to forget without being able to do so. But to go away was not to be thought of. Karin sat perfectly still. In common with all who looked on her, the baron could not avoid seeing that she was beautiful. Had her beauty been by one shade One day, when Sigfrid was to be at court for a few hours, he left Karin with her maid in one of the most retired and charming glades of the Djurgarden. It was a habit of Karin's to never be without paper and pencil, and, seated on a low bench under a tree, she was soon absorbed in a lit-less noble, had there been one coarse tint tle sketch of one of the views before her. or heavy line to justify him, he might have Brunhilda wandered among the paths, been in some degree disarmed. But the though careful to remain within sight and grace and beauty he saw in his son's wife call. As she came upon one of the drives, were that son's complete victory over him. a carriage, turning a sharp curve, rolled The Baron Johann was an egotist, believby so close that the wheels almost brushed ing in birth in the egotist's mean and narher garments. She started back quite as row sense. He would have turned Cinmuch, however, at the face of one of its derella herself out of his house and broken occupants-the face of the Baron Johann her glass slipper in her face, and all the Berg von Linde, purpler than usual with more because she was as fair as a princess a sort of fury and surprise. The carriage should ever-and as a peasant should nevrolled on. Brunhilda glanced at her er-be! He saw the sketch on Karin's young mistress, whose golden hair seemed knee; he thought of the Countess Luitka to shine forth mysteriously bright from and her estates; he trembled. "Who are you?" said he, gruffly, with what paler than usual, her own gentle rean indescribable insolence. Karin, who had been flushed with an artist's enthusiasm, grew pale with a wife's delicate defensive pride. "Herr Baron, I am the wife of your son Sig-" She did not finish the name. The choleric baron, unable to contain himself, slapped her across the cheek and mouth with his ungloved right hand; not a severe but a crisp and passionate blow, and one of the stone angles of the ring he wore made a tiny cut in her cheek. She raised her eyes for an instant to his, then put her handkerchief to her cheek in silence, and the baron strode away, ignorant that she had received this cut, fuming and muttering, and, rather to his surprise, unable to feel so clearly as he wished that he had merely slapped a saucy peasant girl's cheek. In spite of prejudice and passion, that look in Karin's beautiful astonished eyes gave him too strongly the sense of having struck a lady in the face. Brunhilda flew to her mistress, and would have cried out when Karin took down her handkerchief stained with blood, but Karin said, quietly, "Hush! it is a mere scratch." "But, oh! my lady-" pose of manner had fully returned. "But what is this, min alskling ?" said he, tenderly, noticing at once the little red spot in her cheek. "It is only a little cut. Has all gone pleasantly with you, Sigfrid ?" As they neared Fogelnäste, Sigfrid paused in some account of his interview with the king, and said, abruptly, "Why are you so pale, my love, and why such long and curious looks at me to-night?" "Pale? Well, now I am not," said Karin, smiling, as she felt the blood sweep into her face. "I have been looking to see if you resemble your father, and I think you don't, after all." "My father! Have you seen him? When?" "He rode by this afternoon on the drive, just above where I sat sketching. He is not handsome at all, Sigfrid." "Karin!" It was the starling that spoke. Its cage hung in the window-the jalousie was drawn to the very top-in the midst of vines almost as bright with their trailing yellow blossoms as the bar of sunlight that "Lend me your handkerchief, Brun- peered through them freely into Karin's hilda." "Ah! what will Herr Sigfrid say?" After a minute or two of silence, Karin said, now for the first time looking fully at her maid, "Brunhilda, you will never speak of this to any one; you will obey, and you will not forget." Brunhilda promised, but could not forbear expressing the warmest disrespect for the baron. Karin leaned back, shading her face with her hand, her color alternating so swiftly and vividly that Brunhilda was alarmed, but she did not venture to break the silence which the manner of her mistress imposed. pretty studio. The walls were pink and the ceiling blue, both tints so soft as to lend an air-like distance to the surfaces. A large dark mottled mat nearly covered the floor; an easel supporting an unfinished picture stood near the window. Before it sat Karin. The picture-a dainty glimpse of the Djurgarden-was rapidly approaching completion under her hand. As she worked she sometimes compressed her lips and gave a low flute-like call. It was when she had done this that the starling turned his head, and coquettishly trilled, Karin," or at least what sounded enough like it to satisfy his young mistress. 66 She leaned and smoothed his metal-black wing with the handle of her brush. Half an hour later she laid down palette and brushes. "It is finished. Come, grandmother, and see if it is pretty. And you, Brunhilda, tell me if it is like." Karin sat in this way for some time; she was in reality struggling with feelings which she wished to wholly subdue before meeting the eyes of her husband. She was naturally slow to anger, but her temper was hot and strong when roused, and the rude blow on her cheek from the Old Elna came in, a ball of scarlet yarn hand of her husband's father had been a falling from her lap and rolling on before surprise of the most violent and pain- her. As they leaned toward the canvas, ful nature-an incomprehensible thing. Karin pushed back her chair and rose. When at last she removed her hand from The door stood open behind her, and hearover her eyes, though she looked some-ing steps, she said, over her shoulder, and VOL. LX.-No. 359.-38 putting back one hand with a tender and charming gesture of welcome, "Sigfrid, I am so glad you are come." Old Elna looked up, and meeting Sigfrid's eye with a somewhat extraordinary expression in her own, dropped a courtesy, beckoned to Brunhilda, and slipped away at the moment that Karin saw that there was a gentleman with her husband. Having looked with a full, profoundly affectionate glance at Sigfrid, she turned her eyes on the stranger. Many of her husband's friends had been brought to Fogelnäste in this informal manner. This stranger was a tall man, of slender, wellknit frame, some years older than Sigfrid, though still young. He wore a plain bottle-green hunting suit, and held his slouch hat in a muscular but refined and shapely hand. He was dark, with strong features and most piercing eyes, softened by an extremely noble and gentle expression. He seemed both gratified and amused by the open earnestness of Karin's inspection, and bore it in easy silence. Karin," said Sigfrid, taking her hand, "I want to introduce you to one of my friends, who is most anxious to become one of yours-M. .Bernadotte." Karin bowed. "He is a great lover of art, an amateur, as he modestly expresses it. I have been speaking to him about you, and he wishes to see your pictures, and he wants to sit for his portrait to you, my love, if you are willing." Karin again looked at M. Bernadotte, so searchingly that he seemed on the point of being embarrassed; then she said, with a sudden illuminating smile, "I shall like to do it, sir. You will be a good subject, and I am grateful for a good subject. But I hope, sir, you can be patient, I have so little experience as yet in faces-in living faces, I mean. I have made but two studies of living models-my grandmother's and Sigfrid's. Would you like to look at them ?" She turned and led the way into the drawing-room, where most of her paintings hung. As she passed on before them, still speaking, Sigfrid and M. Bernadotte exchanged glances, and the latter, laying his hand an instant on Sigfrid's arm, said, hastily, in a very low voice, Ce n'est plus un mystère que vous tenez peu à ajouter le plus noble quartier de la Suède à votre écusson." 66 "This," said Karin, "is of my grandmother-you may have noticed her when He bowed, smiling. "Does Sigfrid call you so?" M. Bernadotte looked quickly at Sigfrid with laughing eyes. "Yes, Karin, I call him so; he likes it." "Very well," said Karin, repeating the name once or twice to herself. "It is smooth; it will not be hard to say." M. Bernadotte looked at her paintings with care, and expressed both his admiration and his astonishment when he learned that she had literally been without teaching in her art, having only sometimes visited the studios in Stockholm, closely watched the best artists in them while they were at work, and sometimes questioned them as to the method of producing certain effects. M. Bernadotte then spoke at some length of art, and with so much discrimination and simplicity, as well as feeling, that Karin blushed with the most generous pleasure, conversed with animation and eloquence, and seeing that Sigfrid, though he said little, was enjoying the conversation with them, her fine mood expanded, and the flower-like glow of intense happiness overspread her features. Returning to the studio, M. Bernadotte at once recognized and admired the scene from the Djurgarden; but Karin put it away, selected a fresh canvas, and looked so entreatingly that M. Bernadotte sat down to be sketched, checking some demur which Sigfrid began to make. "The baroness," said he, "has the statesman-like quality of perceiving there is no time like the present." "How do you like him ?" asked Sigfrid, after their guest was gone. Karin drew near, and laid one rounded arm upon his shoulder. "I can see, Sigfrid, that there has been no one here whom you like half so well yourself. Why have you not brought him before?" "I have wished to, but he is a very busy man, Karin, much more closely confined than I at the busiest times, and you have | frid is away, and there may not be anothnot thought me idle. You may remem- er opportunity, and I have been wishing ber that I have spoken of him to you but for it." little, for I wanted you first to see him and form your own opinion; and I see it is a good one." "Yes, I like him; he seems so just, so good. He knows so much, and can tell it so admirably well. When I looked at him, Sigfrid, I felt that I could become attached to him. What a piercing yet kind eye! And did you observe his hands? They must come into the portrait somewhere, they are so firm and beautiful. I should believe him good by his hands. And his manners—is he a soldier or courtier? There seems to be something of both." "What a clear-sighted, discriminating little wife!" said Sigfrid, smiling, with quiet, deep delight in his eyes. "What dost thou know, min egen alskling,* of soldiers and courtiers? And yet thou art right; he is a soldier, a brave one, and he has held office at court from an early age." "Thou hast given me a new pleasure to-day, my Sigfrid," said Karin, after a thoughtful pause. "I wonder when he will come again?" But she did not mention a plan already forming in her mind connected with M. Bernadotte. Neither did Sigfrid mention to her that he had given private instructions to old Elna and Brunhilda to protect the young baroness from all interruption on the occasions when M. Bernadotte should be sitting for his picture, and on no account whatever to announce or admit any visitors at such times. Owing to his exacting life, M. Bernadotte came irregularly. His portrait, with which Karin was extremely painstaking, progressed well, and the acquaintance between the artist and sitter gained a gentle familiarity with the deeper feelings of friendship. Sigfrid had been present at the first four sittings, but at the fifth, Sigfrid being detained at court, M. Bernadotte found Karin alone. Her greeting was preoccupied, and he sat quietly as she directed, offering no remark. Suddenly Karin leaned back and laid aside her brush, pronouncing his name with an abrupt earnestness that made him start. "Bernadotte," said she, "I want help. I wish to confide in you. You will not be disappointed if I stop painting? Sig * My own darling. She paused, in considerable agitation, and M. Bernadotte thought he had never seen anything so remarkable as her appearance at this moment, her large, heavily fringed, soulful eyes regarding him with the most open entreaty, the delicate lambent flush, the exquisite self-unconsciousness of her whole expression. made no large movement, for fear of disturbing her; he simply turned his full face to her. He "How can I help you?" said he. "Is it about Sigfrid ?" "Yes, yes; but I don't want Sigfrid to know till afterward. I have been thinking about it ever since you first came here, and Sigfrid told me you were at court; it came into my mind then, all at once, that you could bring it about. I want to see the king." "You mean there is something you wish to ask of the king personally?" "Yes." "Wouldn't it be easier, simpler, to write what you have to say?" "No, no; it is something that I can'tthat I would not write. I want to see the king. Surely you can manage it. When you tell him I am Sigfrid's wife, he will listen to you, for he has a great regard for Sigfrid"-this with a proud turn of her neck. "Sigfrid has told me that the king is not so difficult-that he is one of the gentlest of men to his friends." "Yes, that is true," said M. Bernadotte, hesitatingly; "but I have been at court longer than your husband, and have seen even more of the king. He is not easy to approach, not pleasant to be with, if he is not in the right mood, if any one has offended him." "But I have not offended him!" exclaimed Karin. "I don't like to hear you speak so, Bernadotte; you seem almost to wish to discourage me, but you can not do it. Has not the king been good to you as well as to Sigfrid? and yet you never praise him warmly as Sigfrid does." She paused, a little indignantly, but her wish was too strong not to be urged. "I am determined to see him, and without Sigfrid's knowledge, so I know you will help me, Bernadotte. I hope he may be in the right mood, but any fear of that shall not deter me." "What is it you want so much to ask of the king?" said M. Bernadotte at last, half smiling at her resolute expressions. "Of course I will gladly help you, and if you are willing to tell me, I can venture a guess, at least, as to the probabilities of your success. "I want to have him say or do something to make Baron Johann, Sigfrid's father, be reconciled to him. Oh, Bernadotte"-clasping and throwing forward her hands-" you don't know how much I desire it! I don't care about it much for the baron's sake," with a peculiarly haughty lift of her head, and a slight paleness, "but for the sake of the baroness, his good, beautiful mother, and for Sigfrid. They are so dear to each other-so dear to me! Oh, Bernadotte, if this thing could be done-if I could persuade the king!" "Is this why you don't wish to be yet presented at court?" said M. Bernadotte, irrelevantly, though he had not been able to hear her without emotion. "Sigfrid has told me that the king has spoken of your presentation, but that you have refused, for a reason that you will not explain." "Yes, you have guessed it," said Karin. "I wish not to be brought forward while this trouble exists. You can understand. But that is not what I care for most; it is because Sigfrid feels it so much for my sake, and for his mother, who loves him so much. Ah, she must suffer! If I were Sigfrid's mother, I couldn't bear it. Bernadotte, don't you think I am right-don't you?" She rose and went toward him, and he, rising also, took one of her hands. "Yes, I do think you are right, and I can and will arrange it for you to see the king. But don't you think you would stand a better chance with his Majesty if you had obliged him, and shown some deference in the first place?" not lately been to Fogelnäste, and Karin was beginning to wonder and grow impatient for the promised audience with the king. One day the picture was sent for, and Karin received a note warmly thanking her, and naming the date for her longdesired interview with the king, and M. Bernadotte wrote that he would himself meet and introduce her to the royal presence. During the few days that intervened, Karin was so light of heart that she sang almost continually, and only trilled a merrier roulade when Sigfrid asked her how many nightingales a day it took to keep her throat in such sweet tune. On the morning of the appointed day, as soon as Sigfrid was gone, Karin ordered her britzska, and calling Brunhilda, made a simple but elegant toilet. She chose a dress of a dark blue shade, with trimmings of white lace, and wore for ornament only her wedding ring. Then, with Brunhilda at her side, she directed the groom to the king's palace at Stockholm. As her britzska drew up before the palace, several passers turned to look at Karin, and, together with others who were nearer, formed a considerable group by the time she had alighted. M. Bernadotte came forward, and she took his hand, without observing the crowd, or noticing that he too had taken some pains with his dress for the occasion, and was glistening with orders and symbols of office, so intent was she upon her interview with the king. "How kind thou art," said she, as they ascended the steps, "to be so punctual, and leave me no moments for perplexity!” M. Bernadotte pressed her hand and merely said, a little more formally than usual, that he was glad to serve her. Karin, observing the slight change, laughed softly, and archly exclaimed: "He can not be so vain, so petty-" she began, but stopped short as Sigfrid came in. "Who is it that can not be so vain, so petty?" said he, smiling at Karin's ear-ting on airs!" "Bernadotte, my friend, the air of the court affects thee. Thou art actually put At this moment Bernadotte led the way into an anteroom which was empty. "Dost thou wish to make any little adjustment, perhaps?" said he. Karin's veil was partly lifted; she removed it entirely. "No, I think not," said she. "Do I not look all right?" There was a large mirror behind her, which she had not happened to observe, and she was calmly requiring its service of M. Bernadotte's eyes. M. Bernadotte looked at her and smiled. |