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

ignoble craving; partly selfish and partly pure; but stirred and kindled and fed by such lofty enthusiasms and purposes, that Margaret must be called a noble woman even in her discontent.

      She was roused from her reverie by sounds of strange voices in the hall. As she laid her hand on the door to open it, it was thrown violently open, and she had barely time to spring back, when she found herself clasped in the arms of a tall man, and kissed on cheeks, forehead, eyes, lips, neck.

      She was so stunned, so bewildered, she could not speak; also, strong arms held her so tightly that she had no breath, and the first words came from the servant, who ran into the room, calling vociferously, "Howly Vargin, but it 's not the misthress, at all, at all, that yee 's kissin'. It 's the tacher, sir—och, Miss Margaret, it 's the mistress he is a takin ye for."

      That was a moment not to be forgotten. In the ​dim fire-light, Karl and Margaret having disentangled themselves, stood for a second looking blankly in each other's faces: Karl, the picture of inexpressible chagrin and confusion; Margaret, scarlet with excitement. But her strong sense of the ludicrous soon conquered every other feeling, and, with laughing eyes, she said, "Never mind, Mr. Karl, I will give them all to Annette as soon as she comes home, and I am very glad to see you back, indeed I am," she added, stretching out both her hands to him; "we did not look for you for weeks yet."

      As she took his hands in hers she felt that they were cold as ice, and saw that his face was turning white. His strength of a moment before was only the passing strength of a great excitement. He had set out against the advice of his physicians and nurses, had journeyed day and night, and now the false strength given by the desire to be at home was fast ebbing away.

      "Oh, pray lie down, Mr. Reutner, you look very ill," exclaimed Margaret; and she led him like a little child, to the lounge. Like a little child he lay down upon it, and looked up in her face, while with the servant's help, she took off his heavy wrappings. Then he shut his eyes, and murmured, "The four leaf of clover."

      Margaret was terrified. She thought he was delirious; she dared not be left alone with him, and yet she felt that she ought to send for a physician, ​She bathed his forehead; she chafed his hands; she looked helplessly into the servant's face, saying, "Oh Mary, what shall we do?" At the sound of her voice Karl opened his eyes, and said, feebly, "Do not have fear. I will rest. That is all, and if there is wine, it will make me strong." Then he looked long into Margaret's face with a strange, unseeing gaze, and murmured again, as he shut his eyes:—

      "The four leaf of clover. It have come true."

      When Wilhelm and Annette returned, they found Karl asleep on the sofa, and Margaret siting close by his side, her face pale and full of distress. It had been a terrible hour for her. As soon as she saw Wilhelm and Annette, she burst into tears, exclaiming, "Oh, thank God, you have come; he is not quite in his senses, and I have not known what to do!"

      Hardly daring to breathe, lest they should waken the sleeper, the three sat motionless for an hour.

      At Karl's first movement, Wilhelm threw himself on his knees, and clasped him to his heart; no word was spoken but the two men sobbed like women. While they were in each other's arms Margaret stole softly away.

      When Karl looked up he said, "The four leaf of clover, where has she gone?" Wilhelm did not understand the first words, but replied simply to the last, "She has gone to her room. It is the good teacher, Miss Margaret; she lives with us. You will love her as we all do."

      ​Karl smiled.

      The next morning, when Margaret came into the sitting-room, Karl, still lying on the lounge, fixed his blue eyes steadily on her face, and said abruptly, "It was then that I so frightened you, to make your cheeks so white, last night. To-day they are red, like red lilies and white lilies in one field," and the blue eyes dwelt on the face till the red lilies had driven all the white lilies away.

      Margaret passed her hand impatiently across her cheek. "Oh, I always have color," she said. It did not please her that Wilhelm Reutner's brother should have looked at her in that manner. In a second more, her kindliness of heart triumphed over the slight unworthiness of resentment, and going nearer him, she added, "I was indeed very much frightened about you last night. You seemed very ill, and I was all alone with Mary. I hope you are better; you look better."

      Karl's eyes had fallen to the ground. As clearly as if it had been written in letters on Margaret's brow, he had read her first thought, and had been pained.

      "Yes, I am better; I am well. It is the home which could cure me," he said, in a tone whose grave simplicity was like Wilhelm's, and had in it an inexpressible charm.

      In a moment more, he said, earnestly, "Have you ever found one four leaf of clover?" and, taking out his pocket-book, he turned its leaves over slowly, searching for something.

      ​"Oh dear," thought Margaret, "he is certainly crazy. That was what he was talking about last night. Poor fellow!"

      "Oh, yes, Mr. Reutner," she replied. "Four-leaved clovers are very common. I have often found whole handfuls of them."

      "I thought you had. And have you ever one dream at night that you find the hands full of them, and give them to some one?"

      Margaret looked puzzled, and was about to reply, when Wilhelm and the children entered the room. Karl laid a little folded paper, which he had held in his hand, back into the pocket-book, and opened his arms to the children, who sprang into them, and covered him with kisses until he was forced to cry out for mercy.

      All day long Margaret was haunted by the words, and the voice in which they were spoken, "Have you ever found one four leaf of clover?" "What could he have meant?" she thought. "He does not seem in the least like a crazy man. I wonder what he had in that paper;" and more than once, the scholars received irrelevant answers to their questions, because their beautiful teacher's thoughts were full of this perplexing memory.

      That night the mystery was cleared up. After the children had gone to bed, Karl told the story of the four-leaved clover, and took from his pocket book the little relic leaf. Wilhelm took it in his hands, and looked at it with stern eyes.

      ​"But why dost thou keep it, my Karl? Ach, it has cost thee dear!"

      Karl reached his hand out hastily, as if to rescue the leaf.

      "But it have bring me home," he said. "I will keep it so long as I live," and as he laid it back in the pocket-book, he smiled with the smile of one who recalls a bliss known only to himself.

      It was indeed the "home which could cure." Karl grew better hour by hour. The wound healed, and, although the physicians said that the lungs must always be weak, Karl was in two months a strong man.

      Margaret did not grow wonted to his presence in the family. It disturbed her, she hardly knew how, or why, and she chided herself often for the unreasonable feeling. Since that first morning, when with his blue eyes blazing with admiration, he had compared her cheeks to red lilies, he had never by word or glance betrayed any feeling other than the respectful affection with which his brother and sister treated her. His eyes met hers with the same clear, steady response that Wilhelm's always did, and he listened to her words with a simple reverence like that the children showed her. Often when she was speaking, he sat with his head slightly bowed, his eyes fixed on the ground; and an expression of rapt attention; it was as a man might listen to the words of a priestess. Sometimes when he looked earnestly at her, there was, for a ​second, a beseeching and remorseful look, as of one who implored forgiveness; but the look was gone so quickly that Margaret never fathomed its meaning, and no one else saw it.

      Margaret often wished that Karl had not come home; and yet, she never said this to herself without being in the same instant conscious that in numberless, and in some hardly definable ways, her comfort had been much increased since his return. Karl had seen more of the world than Wilhelm and Annette, and had, moreover, a curious faculty of divining Margaret's preferences and tastes.

      "The teacher would like this, or that," he had said to Annette, again and again; and Annette had replied, "How dost thou know? Has the teacher said it to thee? She was pleased before." But when Karl had carried his