lay where Hilde had dropped them. Presently Luise appeared.

"The gracious Fräulein begs that you will excuse her." She gathered up the sheets of the letter. "The Herr Doctor is awful, Sister. He is raging and storming, and Fräulein Hilde must stay there. She sends you 'Auf wiedersehen,' and begs you to finish your breakfast in quiet."

So Sister Elizabet was forced to depart without having the news of the letter, and, going to Marienbad with a patient, did not see Fräulein Hilde again until her misery had found its twin, and there was no longer the same call to pity her. The summer had waned, the leaves of the Virginia creeper in the garden blazed red, hips were scarlet on the rose-bushes, and drifting leaves startled now and then the goldfish when, one autumn Sunday, Sister Elizabet again appeared at "Zweite. Frühstück" time to visit Fräulein Hilde. To her surprise, the table in the garden was laid for two.

"Ach ja, Sister," said Luise; "there have been many changes. Fräulein-"

But at that moment there came forth from the house a lively-faced little lady whose physical presence one might describe as the aftermath of a certain vivacious beauty the pink and blond prettiness of which had begotten a habit of wearing clothes indicative of coquetry. She moved in quick, girl like movements not altogether lacking in a suggestion of humor now that the actor's age was uncertain.

"Faded, but thinks herself still young," was the Sister's quick, unflattering comment, as her eye noted cheeks once round and pale blue necktie.

Quickly Hildegarde followed, her face beaming at the sight of her guest. "Oh, Sister! Wie glücklich!" caught her visitor's hands in her own.

She

But what a change in her whole being! The old philosophical good humor had been sweetened by a look of content, almost joy.

"May I introduce my friend, Frau Lucan-Sister Elizabet Reinhart ?" And she drew forward the little lady with an air of happy possession. "Luise, Luise, bring the coffee and a plate for the deaconess!" It was only rarely that the voice from above sounded and that Fräulein Hildegarde disappeared, but the little lady poured the coffee and chatted gaily

until she, too, jerked at the sound of a voice. It was a masculine voice, also, old, and vibrating with dictatorial impatience. It came from the third story, and Frau Lucan fled with an "Excuse me, dear Sister; but it is my father. He is an invalid, and he needs me.”

"Du liebe Zeit!" cried the astonished deaconess. "Two fathers! Two daughters! An invalid, and here in the Herr Doctor's house. Luise! Luise!"

But it was the two ladies who explained affairs when, later, laughing at the good sister's bewilderment, they returned to the table.

"Ja, dear Sister," said Hilde, pressing her hand, “my friend has a papa, also."

"Only," put in the little lady, eagerly, "I am modern, and have new ideas, so I do not spoil my father as Hilde does the Herr Doctor."

At which Hilde raised her eyebrows and laughed, while her eyes twinkled at the deaconess.

Well,

"Nein?" she said, “Nein?” and both ladies laughed when an "Anna, a moment," from the upper window left her alone with her guest. "Do you remember, dear Sister,' " she said, drawing out a chair, "a letter which arrived for me on that very last Sunday that you called here? Ja wohl? it was from Anna-Frau Lucan, you know. She was with me in that pension at Cassel, where I went the year before mother's illness, and she wrote to tell me that she had come to our city to live, that she was now a widow, and had the care of her father, just as I have of mine. Was n't that strange, Sister?" Fräulein Hilde smiled most humorously.

Then she told of the renewal of an old friendship, of her joy in Anna's companionship, of the difficulty about visiting, and the objections of the fathers.

"You are telling of us?" asked Frau Lucan as she fluttered from the doorway. "Ja, ja, Hilde; he will sleep now," and she dismissed her parent with a smile.

"Ach ja, dear Sister," she cried, speaking in vivacious tones, and with quick, short sentences, "we had such trouble about our visiting. I am an advanced German woman," she added, throwing up her chin with pride. "I have American friends. They have enthused me with ideas. I have emancipated myself, but,

alas! I cannot train my dear father. I am his one free daughter. The Herr Sanitas Rat Lucan was not successful in saving," she spoke his name hurriedly,

"and I must live with my papa. He has money, though not much; but we are Rhinelanders, and take things gailymuch more easily than you North Germans. Still," she smiled intelligently at Hilde, whose eyes twinkled responsively,-"a father is a father. I have my duties."

"Ja wohl," agreed the two listeners with an emphatic fervor, interrupted by a call of "Fräulein Hilde, the Herr Doctor!"

"He's a dreadful old man, nicht wahr?" The lively little widow jerked her shoulder upward.

"The Herr Doctor?" Sister Elizabet raised her hands. "Himmel, ja!"

"The trouble with our friendship, dear Sister," Frau Lucan continued, "was, of course, the fathers, each of whom pulled harder when he felt his daughter escaping. Though I must say, dear Sister, my father is not like the Herr Doctor. Nein, it would be unjust to permit you to imagine so. He is old, and he is very German. He, however, is always polite, and never unreasonable. We tried, first giving up our afternoon naps, since our fathers at that time sleep also; but, alas, Hilde is fond of comfort, and grew too drowsy. Besides, the two fathers are monopolists and—”

"Were jealous, natürlich," put in the deaconess with prescient surety, her head nodding, her lower lip pressing emphatically above the upper.

Frau Lucan laughed.

"And then," she said, and clapped her hands, the fingers of which wore several rings, "we had a grand idea, a magnificent one. Why not consolidate our papas? A trouble shared, is half cured. Why not one doubled?"

"And so," put in Hilde, who had returned noiselessly, "we 've brought the Herr Major here, and they live in the third story. Anna and I eat here together, when we can," she added with her twinkle, "and she helps me with my father, and I assist with the Herr Major. And"-her smile seemed to wrap her friend in an embrace of affection-"here we are, nicht wahr?"

"It reduces expenses," she said. "Ah," nodded the deaconess, for she knew the Herr Doctor.

When she left, Hilde walked with her to the gate, where, in front of the house, was a pretty park, once the garden of a German poet, where a brook chattered beneath little rustic bridges. As the ladies stood and chatted, Hilde, in her practical way telling of the value of her new-found happiness, out came Frau Lucan to join them. As she walked in a fluttering, vivacious little fashion, the deaconess compared her mentally with butterflies which she had seen, their gay powder damaged or lost through whacks of wind or weather, yet moving with the airy grace so pathetic when divorced from. unblemished beauty. But to Fräulein. Hilde she was the representation of the gaiety and lightness of the outside life she had missed, and, as her friend approached, her plain face glowed, her eyes grew tender with admiration, and she held out a hand of welcome, just as two children ran from the trees of the park to one of the bridges where were black swans opening scarlet beaks in expectation of cake crumbs. Behind them followed a stout, prosperous-looking man with an air of amusing complacency, accentuated by a blond mustache trained upward between the rounding curves of his full, pink cheeks and of his nose too small in size for his importance. Heels together, he bowed.

"Wie gehen Sie, Otto?" the deaconess. smiled.

"Ich danke Ihnen, sehr gut." The gentleman turned to Fräulein Hildegarde. "And how is the Herr Doctor?" he in

quired with an upward glance at a certain second-story window.

"The same as ever, Otto," returned Hilde, pleasantly. "And your wife?"

Then, with an admiring air of showing a treasure, she drew forward her "dear friend, Frau Sanitas Rat Lucan."

Otto and the deaconess said “Auf wiedersehen" together, and departed with the boys. Sister Elizabet glanced back from the end of the walk. The two friends were still at the gate, hands clasped together, little Frau Sanitas Rat leaning against the stronger Hilde. As the deaconess waved a last "Auf wiedersehen" Hilde fled.

"Ach Himmel, the Herr Doctor!" thought the deaconess. "Poor Hilchen! At least," she reflected with the same feminine inconsistency which caused Luise to smile upon the postman, "the Frau Sanitas Rat has had a husband. Hilde has had nothing-only a home and the terrible Herr Doctor. And men laugh at female friendship," went on her thoughts, "and here's this Otto here who gave up such a woman as Hildegarde the day that he knew he must live there. Ja, ja, Otto,' she said aloud, for he was asking questions about the Herr Doctor; "he is quite the same. He always will be, and he may live on to be a hundred."

For fourteen years Otto had always been openly solicitous.

"And Hilde?" he continued, with patronizing interest.

"Hilde 's a saint," said the deaconess, tartly.

"About the Herr Doctor?" Otto's tone was one of surprise.

The head in its black cap and white tie nodded.

Otto Arndt set his lips, his expression increasing in consequential expression.

"I find it right, Sister," he announced. "What, tell me, is a daughter for if not to wait upon her sick father?"

The deaconess flashed him a look from her keen, unfeminine eyes.

"On her husband, perhaps, nicht wahr, Otto? When a daughter or wife does her duty, it seems she must always obey some man, if she 's German.'

"Ja wohl," said Otto, missing the irony; "why not? To cook, to be a housewife, to obey her parents, then, her husband, is my ideal of a true German woman." And he rubbed his hands together, and gazed at the deaconess from the eyes of a face whose expression and coloring would not indicate that his virtues were purely domestic.

"Ja?" The deaconess raised her dark eyebrows. "Here is my street. Auf wiedersehen, Otto Arndt, and my best greetings to your wife."

"Auf wiedersehen," said Otto, amicably; "auf wiedersehen."

ATURE having prepared in southern

of encircling mountains sloping to the bluest of seas, with softly rolling foothills and spacious plains plentifully set with live-oak trees, what could the imagination suggest for the completion of the picture but the terraced villas of Italy and southern France, and the marble courts and fountains of the Alhambra?

To-day we have that coveted fulfilment. Not a single feature of the landscape, not a tone of its wonderful color, not a breath of its joy-giving atmosphere, is wasted on those who have built their houses on the hilltops, while their gardens riot over the slopes in a wealth of bloom which out-rivals that of any other known spot on earth. Here are the gardens of Italy without their grim suggestion of tragedy and gloom-the terraces, the fountains, and the marble courts.

From an esthetic point of view it is as important that certain localities should be settled by a class of people who will fit it to themselves as that they should be settled at all, and it is equally desirable that the improvements which are made should be along the lines which Nature had in mind when she arranged the setting for us.

At Montecito, near Santa Barbara, one may look out over a greenery which scarcely varies with the seasons, and which is a growth of live-oaks, gnarled of limb, with tufts of glossy leaves, waving palms, magnolias, orange-trees, bananas, bamboos, figs and olives. This dark growth is varied with the light-green of the lacelike pepper-tree, and is pierced at fre

quent intervals with the spires of the Italian cypress.

At one point a low, white villa crowns a hill thus covered. There the evergreens seem to grow with a joyous abandon and to crowd up the steep slope to the house. Through the thick foliage a glimpse of the white stone steps of the terraces and their balustrades is caught; the pink tiles of the roof are left unshaded to the sun, and on the broad stone terraces at the top are silent pools of water which reflect the sky and the southern façade of the building. Down the hillside every terrace has its fountain or its pool, and at the foot of the steps and the base of the hill is built a casino with a Persian fountain at its entrance.

Mr. Joseph Waldron Gillespie spent a year in travel with his architect before the Persian garden of this place was laid out or his house was built. A great part of this time was passed in Persia, and the outcome of their stay is a Persian watergarden which fits perfectly into its surroundings.

When Mr. Gillespie selected a foot-hill of the mountains on which to place a villa of purely Italian construction, he chose it with a foresight for which one should be absolutely grateful. Looking off to the sea, with billows of green surrounding it, and nothing within view less pleasing to the eye than the white columns of its numerous pergolas, its stone steps, and marble seats, it seems to furnish the correspondence for which Nature called in the completion of this portion of her work.

Then, too, this garden not only surrounds the house; it penetrates to its in