Part 4

Prince Rudolf gazed eagerly at the beautiful picture for a moment, then threw himself at the feet of the rose sylph.

“O flower of my dream!” murmured he, “have I at last found you? Art thou the rose I sought? Wilt thou leave thy bower to bloom for me only? Shall thy perfume and thy sweets be for my home and my people?”

The maiden said never a word, only her fair head drooped lower and lower, and she hid her blushing face in her slender hands.

Gently and carefully the prince threw over that sunny head the magic veil, which again was fair and whole as the day he received it, but, oh sad and disappointing result! beneath the gauzy folds no longer was visible the graceful form of a blushing maid, but only a slender bush crowned with one lovely blush rose, its yellow stamens the color of the maiden’s hair.

Grieved and disappointed, Rudolf stood regarding the transformation. Suddenly he remembered the words of the wise Althoso: “If the veil remains white and whole, leave it there till you have slept, then pluck the flower and bring it home.”

White and whole the veil certainly was; and throwing himself upon the ground, Rudolf resolutely closed his eyes, nor did he open them till the hum of the birds and bees, the warmth of the summer morning, and the stillness of the spot, had granted him the sleep he so longed for.

It was not, however, long, and the sun had not yet reached his height, when Rudolf opening his eyes, started eagerly to his feet, and turned to look at the rose.

There it stood as he had left it;--a lovely rose, yet nothing but a rose.

Rudolf stood sadly before it, half resolved to pluck the flower from its tree and try to rest content with that, when a sudden thought flashed across his mind, and seizing his diamond spear, with its point he gently touched the rose-bush.

The effect was instantaneous. In the spot where a moment before had stood only a silent plant, Rudolf beheld with delight the slender figure of his rose maiden, her yellow hair circled with a garland of white moss buds, beneath which flowed the silvery folds of the veil, shading but not concealing the faint blush of her cheeks and the deep blue of her starry eyes, which timidly sought the ground.

“O my rose! O my lovely, long-sought flower!” cried the prince, seizing her soft, white hand.

“Come, my Rose, my Rosa Munda, my flower of the whole earth! come to bloom forever in my garden; to be cherished forever in my heart.”

The Rose drooped gently forward. The prince, taking her in his arms, placed her upon Sunbeam’s back, mounted behind her, and with joyous, loving hearts, they journeyed back to his father’s court, where, for very many long and happy years, the beauty of the gentle Rose made all around her happy and contented.

KÖNIG TOLV’S BRIDE

Far in the depths of the wild and gloomy forests of the Hartz mountains stood a little hut, where dwelt the charcoal-burner, Karl Gatz and his daughter Mabel.

Alone they dwelt for years before Mabel’s gentle mother had faded from earth, chilled to death perhaps by the stern, morose husband, to whom her parents had given her. She died, and one summer morning Gatz made a grave for her, beneath the huge blasted pine which towered above his cabin, and then returned to his charcoal burning with no difference except, perhaps, an added gloom and silence in his wayward manner.

Little Mabel was never a joyous child; how should she be, when the tall blasted pine brooded over her home, and her father, who seemed the embodied spirit of the tree, threw as gloomy and baleful a shade over her young heart.

From whence rose the cloud which shadowed all the life of these two, no one knew; but the few poor peasants and mountain dwellers, who alone had heard or cared to talk of so obscure a person, whispered strange stories of a man with whom Karl Gatz had quarrelled, and who had gone up the mountain to claim some money which the charcoal-burner owed him, and never returned. There were no friends or relatives to make inquiries into his fate, and the few who knew of the circumstance shrugged their shoulders and said, “It is no concern of ours. If a fool puts his head under the bear’s paw, must we run to pull him away?” So no one ever asked what had become of Johan Brenner, but all agreed that from that day the black and never lifting cloud had settled close and thick upon the brow and heart of Karl Gatz.

One would have thought that under this dark and poison-dripping shade all pure and lovely things must have withered and died as had the charcoal-burner’s wife, but never in sunniest parterre or most lovingly cared for flower plot had bloomed a fairer, sweeter, more sky-like flower than the dreamy Mabel. Light and gracefully moulded as the fawn, fair and delicate as the wild anemone, her blue eyes had gazed at heaven until they had caught its purest light, and the sun had given his own rays to sparkle in her wavy tresses.

Between the father and daughter there could be but little sympathy or love. The eyes of the silent man bent earthward, and had never marked the wondrous beauty which the slow, sad years were unfolding in his dark and lonely hut, nor had he once met the sad, appealing looks, which, in the gloomy days since her mother died, the heart of the love-longing maiden cast toward the only parent left her. He never looked up, and the thirsty, fainting heart sadly turned away and lived thereafter in its own loneliness.

Mabel had often been with her mother to the convent in the valley, where the poor woman went to confess her fancied sins, and to comfort her yearning heart by hearing of the love which is for all mankind, but is seldom truly valued save by such as, like her, are stimulated by earthly affliction.

While the mother prayed and wept, the little Mabel wandered, like a gleam of summer through the vaulted corridors, and shone by turns into all the narrow, tomblike cells.

The poor nuns, shut out from life and love, gladly welcomed this sweet, fresh presence, beaming with joy and freedom; and many a sister did penance on aching knees, for cherishing, through one wild moment, the wish that she had been an earthly bride, and clasped a child like this to a mother’s heart.

Finding how much the little maiden longed to be able to read and write, good old sister Ursula offered to teach her, and found herself amply rewarded by the warm, tearful smile with which the glad child kissed her withered hand.

An apt and eager scholar did Mabel prove; and in the year which followed, she learned to read and write with fluency and ease, and was able to repay her kind old instructress for her pains by reading in a sweet, hushed voice, those tender, loving promises and solemn, thrilling aspirations, which filled the volumes of the scanty library, and which the dim and fading eyes of sister Ursula could no longer distinguish but with pain and uncertainty.

Little Mabel took great delight in these readings, and she longed to have a book of her own, that she might pursue her studies at home. Expressing this wish one day at the convent, sister Benedicta, with the consent of the Lady Superior, gave her a copy of the mangled and corrupted edition of the Holy Book, prepared for convents and the Catholic use, while the Fraulein von Rosenberg, one of the noble young ladies who boarded and were educated at the convent, called her to the dormitory, and, producing from her trunk a little worn volume, she gave it to her saying,

“So much religion and so many pious works are truly very edifying, dear little one, but I think, for my part, it will do you no harm to read a little of something more amusing; so take this volume of fairy tales, which I have all by heart, and put it into the bosom of your frock.”

Mabel’s eyes sparkled like stars, with delight and gratitude, but pausing as she was concealing the little book as directed, she said,