



Produced by Al Haines.




[Illustration: Cover art]




[Illustration: _Her child eyes were still upon him and seemed to ask for
something yet.  And, at this, he bent and kissed her gently, as he would
have kissed a child, and did not guess that, at the touch of his lips,
Sidonia's woman's soul was born_. (See page 196.)]




                          "IF YOUTH BUT KNEW!"


                                   BY

                         AGNES & EGERTON CASTLE

                               AUTHORS OF
                   "ROSE OF THE WORLD," "FRENCH NAN,"
                               ETC., ETC.



    "_Si jeunesse savait..._
    _Si vieillesse pouvait!_"
      (_Old French Song_)



                  WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY LANCELOT SPEED



                                New York
                         THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
                                  1906

                         _All rights reserved_




                            COPYRIGHT, 1906,
                       BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.

            Set up and electrotyped.  Published April, 1906.



                             Norwood Press
                J. S. Cushing & Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
                         Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.




                               *CONTENTS*


CHAPTER

      I. The Vagabond
     II. The Forest House
    III. Green Adventure
     IV. Parting of the Ways
      V. The Invitation of the Road
     VI. The Burg
    VII. Guests of Chance
   VIII. Roses of Trianon
     IX. Home-Coming
      X. The Burgrave's Welcome
     XI. Tangled Tales
    XII. The Burgrave's Farewell
   XIII. The *Oubliette*
    XIV. Love among the Ruins
     XV. *Furens quid Femina Possit*
    XVI. 'Twixt Cup and Lip
   XVII. The Skirt of War
  XVIII. The Raid
    XIX. The Melody in the Violets
     XX. The True Reading of a Letter
    XXI. At the Mock Versailles
   XXII. The *Cabinet Noir*
  XXIII. The King's Mail
   XXIV. Portents
    XXV. The Perverseness of Words
   XXVI. The Ways of Little Courts
  XXVII. The Song of the Woods
 XXVIII. A Treacherous Haven
   XXIX. The Homing Bird
    XXX. Dawn Music




                        *LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS*


Her child eyes were still upon him and seemed to ask for something yet.
And, at this, he bent and kissed her gently, as he would have kissed a
child... _Frontispiece_

"The something that lived on, the miserable carcass, the old man--call
it myself, if you will"

But, as the oncomer drew nearer, the glimmer of hope died in the
discontented gentleman's heart

As she bent, offering him the green goblet of wine, her heavy plait fell
against his shoulder

Wellenshausen

"Look, look, do you see?... There are two men coming up the road with a
pack-horse!"

"The high-born, my mistress, had not expected you before to-morrow,"
said the butler with a deep bow

Meanwhile, up in his chamber, the Burgrave sat in sodden brooding

Steven almost called aloud, as he heard their heavy plunge into the
ambushed waters

Sidonia stood, shaking and pruning herself like a bird, her hair
glinting in the light

"Spread your dark wings, obscene birds!... the scent of Death is in the
air.  In a little while you may gorge!... caw--caw!"

"Hurl down the Guard, and the field is ours!... Hurl down the Guard,
aha!"

"She always loved violets. These have no scent,... but hers--oh, they
were sweet!"

They spread him beside the Jurist in the moonlight--with a certain
effect of symmetry

... the great bag on his back, undiminished, save for two warrants and
one private missive

What she was saying was sufficiently remarkable: "Your Majesty mistakes"

"Positively, a bird from the tyrant's aviary," he cried.  "A foreign,
French bird!"

His child-wife!...  The watchman was chanting the tale of the first
morning hour

The End




                                   TO
                             "MARIE-LOUISE"




                               *FOREWORD*


_"Is it not," remarks Fiddler Hans the wanderer, somewhere in these
pages, "instructive to see how the ruler of Westphalia passes his time
while the best manhood of his country is warring for the Empire--burnt
in Spain, frozen in Russia?"_

_Few people