knit; his habit was of the finest white wool, closed at the throat with rich white furs, and caught together with latchets of silver. His hair and beard were of a light flaxen color, and his chamois boots were clamped and spiked with polished steel, as if he had crossed the glacier. It was said by those near whom he passed, that a cold current of air followed him, and that his breath was frosted on his beard, even under the mild sun of May.
He said no word to any; but, advancing with a stately air to the little plateau where the fir spars stood crowned with their laurel garlands, he seized upon a boulder larger than any had yet thrown, and cast it far beyond the mark where the blue pennant of Conrad still fluttered in the wind.
There was a stifled cry of amazement, and the wonder grew greater still, when the stranger, in place of putting a willow wand to mark his throw, seized upon one of the fir saplings, and hurled it through the air with such precision and force, that it fixed itself in the sod within a foot of the half-embedded boulder, and rested quivering with its laurel wreath waving from the top.
The victor waited for no conductor; but, marching straight to the benches where sat the bewildered maiden, and her wonder-stricken father, bespoke them thus:
"Fair lady, the prize is won; but if, within a year and a day, Conrad Friedland can do better than this, I will yield him the palm; until then I go to my home in the mountains."
The villagers looked on amazed; Clothilde alone was calm, but silent. None had before seen the stranger; none had noticed his approach, and his departure was as secret as his coming.
The curé muttered his prayers; the village maidens recalled by timid whispers his fine figure, and the rich furs that he wore. And Conrad, recovering from his stupor, said never a word; but paced back and forth musingly, the length of the boulder-cast which the white-clad stranger had made.
The old man swore it was some spirit, and bade Clothilde accept Conrad at once as a protector against the temptations of the Evil One. But the maiden, more than ever wedded to her visionary life by this strange apparition, dwelt upon the words of the stranger, and repeat-
