couples here in the Christmas week, and we danced until after midnight. Are there many balls at Berlin?"

It was now Roman's turn to smile.

"Dozens of them! Scores!" he

said.

"And you go to them all?"

"Not exactly; that would be rather too hard work. But I cannot escape going to a good many. I went to at least a couple of dozen last season. A man who wants to get on in the world, must keep himself before the eyes of society." "How happy you must be!" exclaimed Luba, earnestly. "Yes, I Yes, I should like to go to a ball-a real ball-for once, and to dance Mazur all night. Do they dance Mazur at Berlin?"

"I will show you the step some time if Hala will play a Mazur for us," she answered a little demurely.

Madame Starowolska, holding a large bunch of keys, now came out of the house to say that breakfast was ready.

"And where is Felicyan ?" asked Roman, when he had saluted his sister-in-law.

"Oh, that is a secret," she said, with lowered voice, looking round to see if the children were not within earshot. "I do not know whether I ought to tell you; but if you will promise to be discreet

"I shall be as silent as the grave."

"Well, Felicyan has ordered a little donkey-cart for Zosia and Kostus, and has gone to the village to see if the paint is already dry. I hope it is-for it is so difficult to keep from talking about it, and it would spoil all the fun if they were to find out. What a terrible thing it is to have to keep a secret!"

"Hala," said Luba, a day or two later, when the two sisters were sitting alone, "have you noticed what lovely patent-leather shoes your brother-in-law wears ?" Lovely," endorsed Hala, read

ily.

"And such an elegant pointed shape!-quite different from Felicyan's. Why does Felicyan always wear such ugly boots?"

Hala did not look quite pleased, She had been thinking the same thing herself; but she scarcely cared to hear her thoughts echoed by Luba. Certainly Felicyan did wear very ugly boots; they made his foot appear twice as big as Roman's.

Felicyan requires stronger boots for tramping about in the mud," she said, a little shortly.

"A farmer cannot afford to dress like a fashionable gentleman." "What a pity!" said Luba; and some moments later she added, as though pursuing a train of thought-" Do all German officers wear their hair parted down the middle like that?" "I suppose so. But I have never seen any German officers before."

"It is very becoming," said Luba, musingly.

"I wonder how long he is going to remain?" said Hala, a little later. "I hope a fortnight at least. Felicyan will be so disappointed if he goes away sooner. you have no idea how fond he is of Roman."

Oh, he is quite sure to stay much longer that a fortnight! exclaimed Luba with conviction. Madame Starowolska looked at her sister with a little surprise. "What makes you think that? Did he tell you so?"

Luba now became slightly embarrassed.

fond of toadstools, it seems. And then when I told him that there were no toadstools before August, he said-'Who knows whether I may not still be here!''

"He said that-he said it to you?"

"Yes; and do you know, Hala, he has quite forgotten how to dance Mazur, and he asked me to teach him the step. What am I to do about it? Would it be proper, do you think?"

Why, teach him the Mazur, of course!" briskly returned Madame Starowolska, who had been scrutinising her sister's face. "There can be nothing wrong about showing the step to Felician's own brother. He is almost like your relation."

Not quite," said Luba, still confused. 'He is not really my brother-and one can never tell: he might She broke off suddenly, hiding her flushed face on Hala's shoulder.

"He might," repeated Hala, more decidedly. "And he is very handsome, and is sure to make a brilliant career, Felicyan says. By all means teach him the Mazur!

"But in the glen strive armëd men, They've wrought me dule and sor

row;

They've slain, they've slain the comeliest swain,

He bleeding lies on Yarrow."

Scott, we may note, has changed one line here, and greatly for the worse. He writes

"They've slain,-the comeliest knight they've slain."

Possibly it may turn out that the slain man was not a knight at all,

and that the word "swain was the only appropriate one. Clearly, at least, we have here three stanzas which do not naturally refer to the relation of husband and wife, but to that of betrothed lovers. The ballad of "The Dowie Dens" is thus, like that of "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," rendered inconsistent and incongruous.

Several attempts have been made to remove these incongruities, but not with complete success. Professor Aytoun has the merit of having seen the incongruity in "Willy's drowned in Yarrow," and attempted to remedy it. He evidently holds that this ballad refers to a betrothed maiden, the death of whose lover was caused by drowning, not by violence; but he still retains in his reconstructed version the stanza beginning—

"Yestreen I made my bed fu' braid," which obviously points to a matron as the speaker. And in his version of "The Dowie Dens " he as obviously retains two of Herd's stanzas, already quoted, which can refer only to one in the position of a maiden lover.

to a wife whose husband was slain by her own kinsmen, and treacherously. But this difference of incident is far from conclusive. There is quite a possibility of uniting the two things,-death by violence and the body being found in the stream.

And little or no stress should be laid on the rhythmical ending of "The Dowie Dens," in the repetition of the word Yarrow,—as makthe other ballad,- for versions, ing it specifically different from especially the earliest, whether fragmentary or complete, are not at all uniform in this particular. But there is another explanation, the incongruities in the two baland one which helps to remove lads themselves. This is to be found in the fact that there was an earlier ballad of the Yarrow than either that known as "Willy's drowned in Yarrow" or "The Dowie Dens;" that the stanzas given by Ramsay under the former head, and those given by Herd "To the tune of Leaderhaughs and Yarrow," are simply portionsharmonious portions-of one, and this the earlier ballad; and further, that "The Dowie Dens" as given by Sir Walter Scott was a mixed, therefore incongruous, reference to the incident of the earlier ballad,

and to a later incident in the relations of the families of Scott of Thirlestane and Scott of Tuschielaw.

This original ballad, now that it has been discovered, explains nearly everything. The heroine was really a maiden lover; her betrothed was slain directly by her brother in the course of an unequal combat; his body was thrown into the Yarrow, and there found by her; and any incongruity in representing her both as maiden and matron is explained by the mixing up of the later or Thirlestane incident with the earlier