Saxe Holm's Stories, Second Series. Helen Maria Fiske Hunt Jackson

precious, tired Mamma; it would break my heart to think of you working away without me ​to help you, and when I recall your face on the door-step yesterday, if I were not home up by an instinct that I shall very soon help you much more than I could at home. Only think, I can already send you seventy-five dollars every quarter—half as much as papa's salary; and I know I shall very soon save a great deal more."

      Margaret was right. Such a teacher as she had only to be known to be recognized. Her text-book training had been singularly thorough and accurate, but this was the least of her qualifications as a teacher. In the first place she loved children with all her heart; in the second place, she loved nature and truth with the passion of a devotee. That life could be dull to a human being was a mystery to her; every new discovery in art or science was a stimulus and delight to her; the simplest every day fact had significance and beauty to her; her own existence was rich, full, harmonious, and out of her abundance she gave unconsciously far more than she dreamed to every being that came in contact with her. There was not a pupil in her school who was not more or less electrified by her enthusiasm and love. The standard of scholarship was rapidly raised; but this was a less test of her power than the elevation and stimulus given to the whole moral tone of the school in which she taught. Teachers as well as pupils were lifted to a higher plane by intercourse with her.

      ​At the end of two years Margaret was the principal of the highest school in the city, at a salary nearly twice as large as her father's. But her ambition was not yet satisfied. She longed to be at the head of a school of her own, where she should be untrammeled in all respects, and free to carry out her own theories. This was her one air-castle, and, with a view to this, she planned all her life. Three hours every day she spent in hard study or reading. Only the best of constitutions could have borne such a strain; but Margaret had come, on her mother's side, of an indomitable New England stock. It was in carrying out this scheme of educating herself more perfectly that Margaret had come to live in Wilhelm Reutner's house. Wilhelm's two little daughters had been in her first school. They were singularly gentle and well-bred children, and held themselves always a little aloof from their companions. One day Margaret discovered accidentally that they spoke both German and French fluently. "How is this, little ones," she said; "who taught you so many languages?

      "Oh, papa always speaks to us in German, and mamma in French," said they.

      "And Uncle Karl too," added the youngest, with a sad face. "Uncle Karl that has gone to the war."

      That afternoon Margaret walked home with the children from school. As they drew near a block ​of small two-story wooden houses, Margaret's eye was attracted by two balconies full of flowers. "Oh, how lovely!" she exclaimed.

      "That's our house. Those are Uncle Karl's flowers," cried both the children in a breath; "we take all the care of them now he has gone. He said we might."

      The front of the little house was like a terraced garden. Margaret had never seen anything like it. Every window-sill had its box of flowers, and above the door was a balcony full to overflowing of geraniums, nasturtiums, fuchsias, and white flox. Margaret stood for so long a time looking at them that the children grew impatient, and pulled her with gentle force into the house.

      Annette came forward with a shy, sweet courtesy to meet the unexpected guest.

      "We talk your name very much, Mademoiselle," she said; "to see you will be to the father a happiness." Then Wilhelm thanked her with warm fervor for her goodness to the children, and before he had finished speaking, the children, who had disappeared upon entering the house, came running back with their hands full of scarlet, yellow, and white blossoms, and showered them upon Margaret's lap.

      "But my children, my children!" remonstrated their mother.

      "Uncle Karl said we might pick always some for a pretty lady," cried they; "and is not the ​teacher pretty? Did we not tell you she looked like the Madonna?"

      "It was not the first time that Margaret's face had been compared to that of the Sistine Madonna; always, however, with a qualification, for that calm and placid Madonna had far less joy in her face than was in Margaret Warren's bright countenance.

      "Yes, the children say rightly, young lady. They have done well to bring you the flowers, as our far away Karl would have done," said Wilhelm, gravely, still standing before Margaret.

      Margaret felt as if she were in a dream. She had come expecting to find two plain, honest working people, to whom she could without difficulty say that she would like to come and board in their family for the sake of learning to speak German and French. Instead, she felt as if she had been received by a prince and princess in disguise: so subtle a power have noble thoughts, simplicity of heart, and love of beauty to invest men and women with a dignity greater than splendor can give.

      Margaret made stammering words of her request. It was received with great surprise, but with the same dignified simplicity of demeanor and speech.

      "We have never thought that a stranger could come under our roof, and pay for the food," said Annette, with a shade of pride in her voice; and it might be that our living would displease you."

      ​"The teacher is not as a stranger, when Annettechen and Mariska so love her," said Wilhelm, who was on Margaret's side from the beginning. "But do you remember, young lady, that you have never known such ways as are our ways? It would be a great shame to my heart if you were not at ease in my house; and we can not change."

      With every word that Wilhelm and Annette spoke, Margaret grew more and more anxious to carry her point.

      "It is you who do not know," she said, "how very simply and plainly I have always lived at home, and it is so that I would wish to live even if I had much money. My father is a poor minister; my mother has never, in all her life, had so pretty a home as this."

      And Margaret sighed, as she looked around at the picturesque little sitting-room; its white porcelain stove was now converted into a sort of altar, holding two high candlesticks, made out of the polished horns of antelopes—a crimson candle in one, and a yellow one in the other, and between the two a square stone jar of dark, blue and gray Flemish ware, filled with white amaranths. Low oaken chests, simply but quaintly carved, stood on each side the stove, and a row of tiles, maroon colored and white, with pictures of storks, and herons, and edelweiss flowers, and pine trees on them, was above each chest. The ​furniture was all of oak, old and dark. It had belonged to Annette's mother, in Lorraine. The floor was of yellow pine, bright and shining, and gay braided rugs, with borders of tufted worsted balls, covered the greater part of it. Flowers filled every window, and on the walls were prints of Albert Durer, of Teniers, of Holbein, of Raphael—cheap prints, but rendering the masters works truthfully. In one corner stood a large violoncello, and in another, above a shelf filled with music, hung a violin case wreathed with ever greens. This was Karl's. In the other two corners were odd oaken cabinets with glass doors, and a figure of St. Nicholas on the top. On the shelves were wax and glass and wooden toys. These were the Christmas gifts of many years. The whole room was like a bit of the quiet German Tyrol set in the centre of the bustling and breathless American city; but Margaret did not know this. She only felt a bewildered sense of repose and delight and wonder, mixed with a yearning recognition of the beautiful life which must be lived in this simple home.

      When Annette heard that Margaret's father was a poor pastor, her face lighted up. "My mother also was the daughter of a pastor," she said; and is it then that the good pastors are poor in this country also?" Annette had thus far known only rich and prosperous ones in the rich and prosperous city.

      ​Wilhelm, also, felt that a barrier was removed between him and the "teacher" when he heard that she had lived as a daughter lives, in the home of a poor country pastor. He no longer feared that she could not be content in his house; and his heart had been strangely warm towards Margaret from the first moment.

      "There is Karl's room, which would be sunny and warm, if it were not too small," he said inquiringly, turning to Annette.

      "And the big closet with a window—would it not be that the teacher could use when she would study? said Annette, who remembered the little room in which her grandfather had kept his few books, and sat when he was writing, and must