A STRANGER.


Ferdinand Lind was in his study, busy with his morning letters. It was a
nondescript little den, which he also used as library and smoking-room;
its chief feature being a collection of portraits--a most heterogeneous
assortment of engravings, photographs, woodcuts, and terra-cotta busts.
Wherever the book-shelves ceased, these began; and as there were a
great number of them, and as the room was small, Mr. Lind's friends or
historical heroes sometimes came into odd juxtaposition. In any case,
they formed a strange assemblage--Arndt and Korner; Stein; Silvio
Pellico and Karl Sand cheek by jowl; Pestal, Comte, Cromwell, Garibaldi,
Marx, Mazzini, Bem, Kossuth, Lassalle, and many another writer and
fighter. A fine engraving of Napoleon as First Consul was hung over the
mantel-piece, a pipe-rack intervening between it and a fac-simile of the
warrant for the execution of Charles I.

Something in his correspondence had obviously annoyed the occupant of
this little study. His brows were bent down, and he kept his foot
nervously and impatiently tapping on the floor. When some one knocked,
he said, "Come in!" almost angrily, though he must have known who was
his visitor.

"Good-morning, papa!" said the tall Hungarian girl, coming into the room
with a light step and a smile of welcome on her face.

"Good-morning, Natalie!" said he, without looking up. "I am busy this
morning."

"Oh, but, papa," said she, going over, and stooping down and kissing