said to terminate it, the arrival of two diligences, which takes place at eight o'clock, one from Appeneveir, a station on the Baden and Strasburg railway, another from Offenburg.Every one feels some curiosity to know what addition may be made to our society. An English gentleman—the only one among us-told me his anxiety was always directed towards the luggage. He watched to see it dismounted, and judged by it of the new arrival! Soon after this event takes place, the company generally enter en masse, and promenade the salle à danse, where some of the music-loving Germans usually get the grand pianoforte into practice, and so fill up the moments while the noiseless Kellners are arranging all the matters for a very nice and delicate supper, which you can have à la carte, for a price that almost ought to make you blush to eat it. But no wonder supper is cheap, when you have your plate changed a dozen times at dinner for one florinone-and-eight-pence English! Oh, John Bull! Supper over, you may do what you please. As for me, I went to ponder over my stray leaf; and now that leaf must soon reach its destination, for a voice from the isle of the west-a voice ghost-like as that of long-departed days-came to my fardistant ear, and said that the chaplet this leaf from the Black Forest must join was well-nigh complete; formed of richer and daintier things, I aim only to add one trifling sprig of garniture, hoping far more to be adorned than to adorn. Fortunately for me the season is closing; autumn comes on here so early, so very early; if Herr Göringer were not almost dismissing his guests, I could linger to enjoy an autumn at Rippoldsau, which might repay me for half a summer at Baden.

Why do not the English flock to this charming spot, instead of to that scene of gaiety and gambling-that most tiresome Conversations Haus, where conversation is not-where the words that are heard most incessantly have rung the death doom of happiness and hope, of credit and peace to many a heart, and caused in others the savage joy which the heart of a hardened gambler alone can know ?"Le noir perd, le rouge gagné. Messieurs faites votre jeu." So says the indifferent, monotonous voice of the

croupier, "from morn to dewy eve," from eve to morn again, and youth is blighted into age, and age-yea, I have seen faltering, white-haired ageclutches up the gold, and forgets that he is nothing profitted who gains the world and loses his soul!

At Rippoldsau there is none of this; there vice is not seen walking unabashed and unrepressed among the young and beautiful, the delicate, and in their own land, or by the assertion of common report, the prudish.

There was only one English family at Rippoldsau, and that one seemed a chance arrival-a German doctor had prescribed its waters for a young grand-daughter of Colonel L Surely if the English like to be made much of they should come here: they always fly in flocks, and being common every where, and estimable chiefly for the gold they carry, it is, I believe, seldom their lot to leave any place as Colonel L and his party left Rippoldsau.

Almost every day was marked by a departure our social party was lessening and lessening, our company dropped away quicker than the leaves of the still green forest. The English colonel's family was to leave us—what a departure was that!-why are there not many such ?

He chose to engage the whole diligence or Eilwagen. At six in the morning every one connected with it looked important. The preparations continued till nine, when the Englanders entered the court, and instantly the band struck up "God save the King" (Queen?) How silly of us all-but the Germans and the Swiss were as bad as myself-every one of us had our eyes full of tears. Not one of Herr Göringer's establishment had entered the house, or thought of breakfast, lest they should miss the adieu. There were all the gentlemen with uncovered heads, holding up their hats and trying to get as near as they could, and the ladies with out-stretched hands, and the hearty cry-“ Adieu, adieu, mein Leiber." The poor ladyshe had seen many years, and travel had lost its charm-got into the diligence and pretended to be arranging something, but when Herr Göringer came to assist her, the tears fell down. Away went the honest man, for an Englishwoman shedding tears at leay

ing his own Rippoldsau penetrated his heart, and he called in haste for another pair of horses, and off they set with the Eilwagen and six, the band playing their own national anthem, the ladies waving their handkerchiefs in the air, and then clapping them to their eyes; the men holding their hats aloft, bowing down to the ground, and feeling quite ready for coffee and pipes.

We had not many more days to be together after that, for every thing told of departure, after the departure of the only English family who had sojourned at Rippoldsau that season. The next day was one which annually formed a most agreeable finale to Herr Göringer's season—it was the fete of the Gros Herzog, the Grand Duke; or as I, in days of blissful ignorance, used to translate the title-The great Hedgehog. I had a hint conveyed to me that my presence at the table d'hote was expected that Mein Herr considered it better for me to feast on his delicacies, instead of luxuriating in the Schwartzwald. So I presented myself at the table d'hote, not knowing for why, till I saw the last flowers of the season with which it was adorned, and heard the startling sound of champagne bottles uncorking in various directions. It was the fête of the great Herzog, and Mein Herr fêted the Herzog, his own guests, his supernumerary attendants, and himself, on the same occasion, making the day a most delightful closing one for sweet Rippoldsau and its summer pleasures.

What a tinkling of glasses was there! Herr Göringer walked all along the long table, touching his glass of champagne to that of every lady and gentleman at it. The health of the Herzog was drunk standing, and that of Mein Herr was drunk by his guests in the same way, and every one touched glasses as they pleased, and good hearty wishes were changed, and plenty of merriment celebrated the birth-day of the great Herzog of Baden.

ex

The day ended with a dance; the waltz-loving Germans waltzed out the last day of the season. It was an amusing sight; all the employés of Rippoldsau were in the salle à danse. The Kellner made his bow most gravely, and flew into the rapid-whirling waltz with the partner of his VOL. XXVII. No. 159.

choice; and one good fellow waltzed to admiration with his blue blouse flying nearly over his head, and his rough shoes sounding almost as loudly as the music; but all was gaiety, politeness, and decorum. Next day there were but the ghosts of the guests of Rippoldsau to be seen yet lingering in its deserted haunts. My face was set towards the mountains of Tyrol, but my heart clung to the place which had yielded me renewed mental and bodily strength. It was a sweet evening, and I sat in a little pavilion on the hill side with a friend. We are now separated as far as the east is from the west, yet may we both remember that setting sun seen in the same hemisphere, and its rich, cool glow on the dark green foliage of Le Forêt Noir. Oh! what is life? I write the words-How? Some few, very few, in this wide world may be able to tell; but not in the Black Forest-not at sweet Rippoldsau-I have left it-I gaze on no setting sun. Blessed be God! thou art the same, and thy years fail not!— Well, where am I going?

I was look

ing at that bright sun and listening to words that brought tears into my eyes, when the voice of Herr Göringer broke the spell. I was crammed into a thirteen-inside omnibus, and sent off to behold one of the most singular sights in the world, the descent of a timber float from the Forest mountains.

The sluices were opened, and as we leaned over the bridge, we had a backward view of the stream that came dashing down towards us. A cry was heard; suddenly the raft appeared; swifter than the water it moved along, an awful and an interesting sight. A bold, commanding, woodsman-like figure, stood foremost on the fragile planks over which the torrent was dashing, a large pole in his hand steadying its course; there was another beside him, and a helmsman behind them; and while all our faces, and numbers of other faces were staring excitement, wonder, and fear, there they stood, with youths and little boys also, as calm, as grave, as deliberate, as if they were smoking their pipes before their own doors; not a glance to the observers, not a word or a look that said they were doing any thing extraordinary. Down, down, on the rush of the loosened 2 A

mountain streams-their conveyance, the felled stems of trees, which were to be borne away on the mighty Rhine, and perhaps contribute to form a bulwark for Holland, perhaps—but who could speculate on their destination? On go the old trees of the forest, and on go the older streams, and on goes the being who is of yesterday, and whose dwelling is in the dust on goes the Man of the forest, swaying tree and torrent, and guiding them at his will. Great little being!-how marvellous art thou in thy three score years and ten!

The raft moves quicker than the water; they are obliged to wait for the descent of the latter; a rope is thrown out, coiled round a tree on the banks, and the long raft, composed of numberless barked and prepared trees, is drawn in an angular shape across the river, so that the angles catch in the banks, and there it rests while they wish to arrest it. It was at this moment of stopping that I heard the sound of carriage

wheels, and turning round I saw Mein Herr himself, seated in a small open carriage, with a wolf-hound at his feet, peeping up as if he too noted all that was going on, and entered into my philosophy.

Herr Göringer was actually going from his patriarchial domain, going to leave Rippoldsau, and going, they said, to the Chace-it was time, then, for every one else to depart. So I ran and shook hands most warmly with Mein Herr, promising him I would send a leaf from the Black Forest to join the shamrock wreath of Erin; and to those who pick up that leaf is the same hearty farewell now made by one who has kept her promise, at least in part, and may, if sunnier days and calmer hours than those that now hang over her return, despatch a still lighter sprig to rejoin that revered leaf, or relate a story dark as the pines of the forest, beneath whose shadow it was related during her visit to pleasant Rippoldsau.

S. B.

F. A. E.