with some historical pieces, decorated the walls.

"Have we no garland on the table?" asked Sophie, as she entered the
dining-room with the others.

"Only a weak attempt to imitate my sister!" said Louise, smiling.

"But there is not a single flower in the garland! What economy! And
yet it is sweet!"

"How tasteful!" exclaimed Otto, examining the garland which Louise
had laid.

All kinds of green leaves, with their innumerable shades, a few
yellow linden-leaves, and some from the copper-beech, formed,
through their varied forms and colors, a tasteful garland upon the
white table-cloth.

"You receive a thistle and a withered leaf!" whispered Wilhelm, as
Otto seated himself.

"But yet the most beautiful!" answered he. "The copper beech
contrasts so sweetly with the whitish-green thistle and the yellow
leaf."

"My sister Sophie," said Louise, "lays us each day a different
garland;--it is such a pretty decoration! If she is not here we get
none; that would have been the case to-day, but when I learned that
Wilhelm was coming, and that we," she added, with a friendly
glance, "should have two other guests, I in great haste, made an