ANNA.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XVI, Issue 30, 16 November 1888, Page 25

ANNA.

(By Catherine Macquoid in Leisure Hours.)

Thbee thousand feet up the side of a Swiss mountain a lateral valley strikes off in the direction of the heights that border the course of the Rhine on its way from Coire to Sangans. The closely-cropped, velvet smooth turf, the abundant woods, someiimesof pine trees and sometimes of beech and chestnut, give a smiling park-like aspect to the broad green track, and suggest ideas o£ peace and plenty. As the path gradually ascends on its way to Fadara the wealth of flowers increases and adds to the beauty of the scene. A few brown cow btables are dotted about the flower-sprinkled meadows ; a brook runs diagonally across the path, and some freshlylaid planks show that inhabitants are not far off, but there is not a a living creature in sight. The grasshoppers keep up their perpetual chirrup, and if one looks among the flowers one can sea the gleam of their scarlet wings as they jump ; for the rest, the flowers and birds have it all to themselves, and they sing their hymns and ofler their incense in undisturbed solitude,

When one has crossed the brook and climbed an upward slope into the meadow beyond it, one enters a thick fir wood full of fragrant shadow ; at the end is a bank, green and high, crowned by a hedge, and all at once the quiet of the place has fed. \ Such a variety ot gounds comes down the green bank ; A cock ij'crowing loudly, and there is the bleat; of a young calf; pigs are eqeaking one against another, and in the midst of the din a dog be. gins to bark. At the farther corner, where tbe hfdge retreats from its encroachments on the meadow, a gray house comes into view, with a sign-board acrosß the upper part announcing that here the tired traveller may get dinner and a bed.

Before the cock has done crowing — and really h* goes on so long that it is a wonder ha is not hoarse — another voice mingles with tbe rest.

It is a woman's voice , and, although neither hoarse nor shrill, it is no more musical than the crow of the other biped, who struts about on his widely-spread toes in the yard, to which Christina Fasch has come to feed the pigs. Tnere are five of them, pink nosed aad yellow coated, and they keap up a grunting and snarling chorui within their wooden enclosure, each struggling to oust a neighbour from bis place naar the trough while they all greedily await their food.

" Come, Anna, come," says the hard voice ; " what a slow coach you are I I would do a thing three times over while you are thinking about it 1"

The farmyard was bordered by the taU hedge, and lay between it and the inn. The cow house, on oae side, was separated from the pig etyes by a big stack of yellow logs, and the farther coiner of the inn was flanked by another stack of split wood, fronted by a pile of brushwood ; above was a wooden balcony that ran also along the house front and was sheltered by the far projecting eaves of the shingled roof.

Only the upper part of the inn was built of logs, the rest was brick and plaster. The house looked neatly kept, the yard was less full of stray wood and litter that is so usual in a Swiss farmyard, but there was a dull, severe air about the place. There was not a flower or plant, either in the balcony or on the broad wooden shelves below the windows — not so much as a carnation or a marigold in the vegetable plot behind the house .

A shed stood in the corner of this plot, and at the sound of Christina's call a girl came out of the shed. She was young and tall and strong looking, but she did not beautify the scene.

To begin with, t>he stooped ; her rough, tangled hair covered her forehead and partly hid her eyes ; her skin was red and tanned with exposure, aad her rather wide lips drooped at the corners with an expression of misery that was almost grotesque. She carried a pail in each hand.

"Do be quick 1 " Christina spoke impatiently as she saw her niece appear beyond the woodstack.

Anna started at the harsh voice as if a lash had fallen on her back ; the pig's food splashed over her gown and filled htr heavy leather shoes.

" I had better have done it rayself," cried her aunt. *' See, unhappy child, you have wasted food aud time alsol Now you mast go and clean your shoes and stockings ; your gown and apron art only fit for the wash tub I Ah ! "

She gave a deep sigh as aha took up first one pail and then th« other and emptied the wash into the pig trough witbout spilling a drop by the way. Anna stood watching her admiringly.

" Well," Christina turned round on her, " 1 ask myself what it the use of you, child ? You are fifteen, and so far it seems to me that you are here only to maka woik for others 1 When do you mean to do things as other people do them ? I ask myself, what would become of you if your father were a poor man, and you had to earn your living 1 "

Anna had stooped yet more forward ; she seemed to crouch as if she wanted to gee out of sight, Christina tuddenly stopped and looked at her for an answer.

Anna fingered her splashed aproa ; she tried to speak, but a lump rosj in her throat, and she could not see for the hot tears that would, against her will, rush to her eyeß.

" I shall never do any hing well," sbe said at last, and the misery in her voice touched her aunt. " I used not to believe you, aunt, but now I see that you are right. 1 can never be needful to any one." Then she went on bitterly : "It would have been better if f»th«r had taken me up to the lake on Scesaplana when I was a baby and drowned me there aa he drowned the puppies in the wash tub."

Christina looked shocked ; there was a frown on her heary face which was usually &s expressionless as if it had been carved in wood.

•' Fie 1 " she said. ''Think of Gretchen's mother, old Barbara — she does not complain of the goitre ; though she has to bear it under her chm, she tries to keep it, out of sight. I wish you would do the same with your clumsiness. Tbere, go and change your clothes ; go, you unlucky child, go 1 "