appointed in her ambition, crippled in her means, and soured by her trials, the widowed countess, weak in mind and tyrannical by nature, expended upon trifles the energy and order which were better suited to matters of importance. Her pleasure-ground was typical of her whole life. She had not one enlarged idea; not one great perception; but pressed her iron rod upon rushes and weeds. All was monotony and submissiveness in the old mansion; and it will be easily understood that an undercurrent of lassitude and disgust soon destroyed the beautiful unity of nature which is so blessed an attribute of the young. Father Eberhard preached obedience to the revolting spirit of the youth, and he obeyed in so far as by word and action he could follow the counsel he received, but in the depths of his spirit he rebelled. No word of encouragement, no sentence of endearment, ever escaped the pinched lips of the countess. Like many other weak persons, she believed that dignity consisted in an absence of all concession, and gratified her vanity by adopting as her creed that an absence of rebuke should satisfy all around her, but that none should venture to presume upon her indulgence.

In this dreary way did she fritter away her age, but the evil did not end there; for she wasted along with it the fresh youth and pure spirits of her children, already sufficiently unfortunate from their exceptionable position. In her daughter she found a docile pupil; nor did Stephanie resist, even when her mother dashed the cup of happiness from her lips by refusing her consent to a marriage which would have crowned her dearest hopes. The suitor, unexceptionable as he was in point of character, income, and disposition, failed in exhibiting like the Königsteins-his nine quarterings, and was rejected accordingly. Stephanie, as we have said, submitted; but she was blighted in heart from that day forth; andlast and worst misery for the young -she ceased to hope in the future. What could it offer to her which would remedy the past? And with her occasional bursts of cheerfulness fled the sole charm of home to her boy-brother. Yet still he controlled himself, for his was not a nature to

waste its strength on trifles which he felt to be unworthy of the strife. There was a fire within, but it was buried deep beneath the surface, like that of a volcano, which, suffering even for years, the vicinity of man and of man's works, slowly collects its deadly power, and then in one dread effort spreads ruin and desolation on all within its influence.

At length the countess died, and her children mourned for her as we all mourn over accustomed objects of which we are suddenly deprived. They missed her every day and every hour; they missed her harsh and cold accents; they missed her imperious orders; her minute reproaches; her restless movements. They felt themselves alone; abandoned to self-government after years of unquestioning subjection; the world of their own home appeared too vast to them when they were called upon to inhabit it without the presence of the ruling spirit which had hitherto sufficed to fill its void. Nor did the orphans draw more closely together as they walked away, hand in hand, from beside the grave of their last parent. They had no longer a feeling in common. Stephanie was like the tree prostrated by the lightning, and crushed into the earth by the weight of its own fall: Elric was like the sturdy sapling braving the tempest, and almost wooing it to burst, that he might feel its wild breath rioting among the leaves which now lay hushed and motionless upon their boughs. Moreover, debarred the healthful and exciting exercises of her brother, the young countess had never passed a day, and scarcely an hour, beyond her mother's presence; and, careless of herself, she had necessarily followed the monotonous routine of her home duties, until she had ceased to see to how poor and pitiful a result the majority of them led. The spring of her life-if such a life can be said ever to have had a spring-was over; the little vanities of her sex had ceased to occupy her; and she pursued the same dreary round of occupations and anxieties, eventually as much from choice as custom.

If Elric, as he turned away from his mother's grave, hoped for a brighter home or a more congenial companionship, it was not long ere he was

fully undeceived. Nothing could arouse Stephanie from the moral torpor into which she had fallen; and, never doubting that her privilege of eldership would leave her right of control unquestioned, she endeavoured to compel her young and fiery brother to the same wearisome, heart-sickening monotony of which she had herself long ceased to feel the bitterness. In this attempt she was destined, however, signally to fail. Crippled as he was in his worldly career by the comparative poverty in which he found himself, Elric was, nevertheless, like the wounded eagle, which, although it cannot soar against the sun, may still make its aërie in the free air and upon the mountain - heights. His strength was crushed but not subdued. It is impossible to say what he might have been had his impetuous passions been diffused and rightly directed. The leaping torrent may be diverted into a channel, and turned to purposes of usefulness, in which its headlong fury, exhausting itself by degrees, may leave it to flow on ultimately in a clear and placid stream; while, unheeded and unguided, it must prove only a source of ruin and destruction. And such was the moral condition of Count Elric. He felt his strength, but he was yet ignorant of its power, and utterly unskilled in its control.

Many years, however, had passed over the orphans in dreamy listlessness. Once the young man had endeavoured to condole with his sister upon the heart-stroke inflicted by the prejudices of their mother; but his sympathy awakened no response in her cicatriced heart. She even applauded the rigour which had saved her from the remorse of disgracing her family, and urged upon him the necessity of being careful that her sacrifice should not be made in vain.

This was the last attempt of Elric to open up the springs of family affection; and he felt his failure the more bitterly, that he yearned for a companionship of spirit. Even the worthy Father Eberhard was lost to him; for he had been called to a distant mission and had quitted Nienburg, in all probability, for ever. He looked around him, and envied the busy inhabitants of the little town,

who pursued alike their avocations and their amusements in common; while he sighed as he remembered that from these he was alike shut out. He could not, now that he had attained the age of manhood, volunteer a partnership in the social occupations of the plebeian citizens with whom he had been forbidden all association during his youth, and with whom he could now never hope to meet upon equal terms.

The solitary young man turned, in his isolation, to Nature; and Nature is a marvellous comforter to those who can appreciate her consolations and her endearments. He threw aside his books; they had long ceased to afford him either amusement or instruction; he abandoned his sister to her solitary home. She scarcely seemed to remark his absence, save when it interfered with the clockwork regularity of the little household; and he rushed away to the forest depths, and flung himself down beneath the shadows of the tall trees, and thought until thought became madness; and then he seized his gun, and pursued the game through the tangled underwood, until, in fatigue of body, he forgot his bitterness of soul; or plunged once more into the sunshine, and paddling his boat into the centre of the stream, waged war upon the finny tribes that peopled it. His return, when laden with these spoils, was always welcome to the countess, for she was too good a housewife not to appreciate such an assistance to their slender means; but suddenly this resource, upon which she had begun to calculate in her daily arrangements, failed her all at once; nor could Elric, when questioned upon the subject, offer such reason for his defection as tended to satisfy her mind. With the true perception of a woman, she felt that there was a mystery. Where could Elric spend the long hours in which he was daily absent from home? and with whom?

Suddenly a suspicion grew upon her, and a deep crimson flush overspread her usually pale check as she began, with a beating heart, to take a mental survey of her distant neighbourhood.

"It cannot be the gräfine Rosa,” she murmured to herself: "for although Elric could row to the

schloss in three hours, he could not return in the same time against the current; nor would the proud countess encourage him: he is too poor. No, no-it cannot be the gräfine Rosa. Baron Kadschan's daughter? -Equally impossible. Elric has no horses, and there are five long leagues between us. Constance von Iartheim ?-Still more improbable. She is to take the vows next year in Our Lady of Mercy. Poor, too, as himself, and as noble. No, no, her family would not permit it. And we know none other! Unless, in

deed, the dark-eyed daughter of the Burgomeister of Nienburg. But I am mad-he DARE not! I would rather see him stretched out yonder in the death-valley."

The eye of the proud countess flamed, and the deep red glow burned on her cheek and brow; she clenched her slender hands tightly together, and her breath came thick and fast; but she soon controlled her emotion, and whispered to herself with a bitter laugh, which sounded strangely in that silent room, "No, no, he DARE not!"

"Whisht, whisht, Mina; here is the Herr Graf!"

A joyous and graceful peal of laughter was the sole, and evidently incredulous reply to this warning. There was no mistaking the origin of that melodious mirth: you felt at once that the lips from which it had gushed were fresh, and rich, and youthful; and that the eyes which danced in their own light as it rang out were eyes such as poets dream of when they have visions of a world unknown of sin.

"Once more, Mina, dear Mina, I vow by my patron-saint! here is the Herr Graf."

These words were uttered by a young girl in the costume of a peasant, with a round, good-humoured, sunburnt face, bare arms bronzed by exposure to the weather, and one of those stunted and muscular figures which seem to herald an existence of toil and hardship. She was standing near a cluster of marsh-willows which overshadowed a little runlet, that, descending from the height above the town, swept onward to the river. As Elric, for it was of him that she spoke, reached the spot, a second figure sprang from a sitting position, and stood before him. The young count started, and forgetting that he was in the presence of two mere peasant girls, with intuitive courtesy withdrew his cap. Well might he start; for such a vision as that upon which he looked had never before met his eyes.

It was that of a young girl in the first dawn of her beauty. The glow of fifteen summers was on her cheek, the light of heaven dwelt in the depths of her dark blue eyes, whose

lashes, long and lustrous, tempered without concealing their brightness. A flood of hair of that precious shade of auburn which seems to catch the sunbeams, and to imprison them in its glowing meshes, fell upon her finely developed shoulders, which were partially bare. Her little feet, moulded like those of an antique nymph, and gleaming in their whiteness through the limpid waves by which they were bathed, were also necessarily uncovered ; one small delicate hand still grasped, and slightly lifted the coarse, but becoming drapery in which she was attired. Her figure was perfect, and bending slightly forward, half in fear and half in shame, looked as though a sound would startle, and impel it into flight. The lips, parted by the same impulse, revealed teeth like ivory; and the whole aspect and attitude of the girl was so lovely that Canova might have created his master-piece after such a model.

For an instant there was silence, but only for an instant; for, his first surprise over, the young count sprang forward and offered his hand to the fair maid to lead her to the bank. She obeyed without remonstrance, for so great an honour had rendered her powerless to resist ; and, in the next moment she stood beside him, with her small white feet half-buried among the yielding grass.

Who cannot guess the sequel of such a meeting? Intoxicated by her beauty, thralled by her graceful simplicity, an hour had not passed ere Elric had forgotten the nine quarterings of the Königsteins and the real position of the fisherman's daughter. A new world had developed itself to

the fascinated recluse. Hitherto, he had dwelt only amid coldness and restraint; no kindred spirit had awakened at his touch; no heart had throbbed beneath his gaze. Now, he saw a fair cheek glow and a bright eye sink under his praise: he felt the trembling of the little hand which he grasped within his own; and he began to understand that he was not alone on earth.

The father of Mina was poor, very poor. Her mother was dead. She was the one pet lamb which to the fisher was dearer than the flock of the rich man: she was the child of his age and of his prayers; the light of his narrow dwelling; the sunbeam of his home. He was not long ere he heard of the meeting under the alder-trees; and poor and powerless as he was, he resolved, as he kissed the pure brow of his daughter when she lay down to rest, to remonstrate with the Herr Graf, that his pure one might be left unto him pure. He did so on the morrow, when once more, Mina and Elric had met beside the mountain-stream. The girl was there because the count had made her promise to meet him; and he, because his whole soul was already wrapped up in the peasantmaiden. They were sitting side by side, and hand in hand, when the old fisher came upon them; and they both looked up, Mina with a blush, and Elric with a smile, but neither shrank beneath the stern and anxious eye of the old man.

"Is this well, Herr Graf ?" asked the father, in a voice which was full of tears; "the strong against the weak, the rich against the poor, the proud against the humble? Have pity upon me, I have but her."

And she is worth all the world, old man," replied Elric calmly; "possessed of her, you are the rich, the strong, and the proud. I was alone until I found her."

"And now, my lord count ?" "Now she must be mine." The sturdy fisher clenched his hand, and moved a pace nearer to the young noble.

Elric sprang to his feet, and grasped the convulsed hand.

"She has promised, and she will perform will you condemn me gain to solitude and to despair ?"

My lord count," gasped the

grey-haired man; "heaven knows how I have toiled to keep a roof above her head, and comfort at her hearth; and my labour has been light, for her evening welcome has more than paid me for the struggle of the day. Leave us then in peace. Do not make me weep over the shame I may not have the power to avert."

"You are her father," murmured Elric passionately, as his large eyes flashed, and his lips quivered; "or you should not live again to couple her name with the idea of shame. Mina shall be my wife!"

The astonished fisherman staggered as though he had been struck by a heavy hand.

"Your wife, Herr Graf! You dream! Mina can never be your wife. Your name is the noblest that has ever met her ear. You dwell in a palace, and may stand before the emperor. And what is she?"

"My affianced bride!" said the young count, proudly: "my life had become a bitter burden, and she has turned it to one long dream of delight; the future was a vision of which I feared to dwell upon the darkness; she is the sunbeam which has brought day into the gloom, and spread before me a long perspective of happiness. Talk not to me of my proud name; I would I had been born a cotter's son, that so I might have had fellowship with my kind."

Mina only wept.

66

'Surely I dream !" murmured the old man, passing his hard hand across his brow. 66 'My child is so young—

so ignorant."

"I will be her tutor."

"So unfitted to be the wife of a noble."

"I am poor enough to be a peasant."

"I shall die if I am left desolate."

"You shall be her father and my father; her friend and my friend." While he spoke Elric bent his knee, and drew Mina to his bosom; and as the beams of the declining sun fell upon the group, the long shadow of the old man rested upon the kneeling pair. The aged fisher bent his grey head and wept.

No vows were plighted: none were needed; and henceforth the whole soul of Elric was wrapped up in his peasant-love. One only weight pressed upon his spirit. He remem

bered the prejudices of his sister, and shrank before the bitter scorn with which he well knew that she would visit the timid and unoffending Mina. This was the only evil from which he felt powerless to screen her. That the cold and proud Countess Stephanie and the fisher's daughter could share one common home, he did not dare to hope; yet his roof must be the shelter of his young bride; nor could he contemplate the departure of his sister from the dwelling of her ancestors without a pang of anguish; he felt that she would go forth only to die. This conviction made a coward of him; and he left her knowledge of his defalcation to chance.

It was not long ere a rumour reached her of the truth, but she spurned it in haughty disbelief. It could not be-day and night might change their course, and the stars of heaven spring to earthly life amid the green sward of the swelling hills -but a Königstein to wed with a peasant! No-no-the young countess remembered her own youth, and laughed the tale to scorn. Still she watched, and pondered over the long and profitless absences of Elric; and still her midnight dreams were full of vague and terrible visions; when at length she was compelled to admit the frightful truth.

Had the gräfine been a woman of energy and impetuous passions, she would have become insane under the blow; but she had passed a life of self-centred submissiveness; and if the thunder was indeed awakened, it reverberated only in the depths of her spirit, and carried no desolation upon its breath. Cold, uncompromising, and resolute, she had gradually become under the example of her mother and the force of circumstances. The one great end of her existence was now the honour of her race, of which she was only the more jealous as their poverty rendered it the more difficult to uphold. All else had been denied to her; a home of loving affection, the charm of social intercourse, the pleasures of her sex and of her rank-she had grasped nothing but the overweening pride of ancestry, and a deep scorn for all who were less nobly born.

The last bolt had now fallen! Months passed on; months of dissension, reproach, and bitterness. For

VOL. XXXIII. NO. CXCVII.

awhile she hoped that what she deemed the wild and unworthy fancy of her brother would not stand the test of time: nay, in her cold-hearted pride, she perhaps had other and more guilty hopes, but they were equally in vain. Mina was daily more dear to the young count, for she had opened up to him an existence of affection and of trust to which he had been hitherto a stranger; his time was no longer a burden upon his strength. The days were too short for the bright thoughts which crowded upon him, the nights for his dreams of happiness. Mina had already become his pupil, and they studied beside the running streams and under the leafy boughs; and when the page was too difficult to read, the young girl lifted her sunbright eyes to those of her tutor, and found its solution there.

Al

The lovers cared not for time, for they were happy; and the seasons had once revolved, and when the winter snows had forbidden them to pursue their daily task in the valley or upon the hill-side, the last descendant of the counts of Königstein had taken his place beside the fisher's hearth, without bestowing one thought upon its poverty. But the father's heart was full of care. ready had idle tongues breathed foul suspicions of his pure and innocent child. She was becoming the subject of a new legend for the gossips of the neighbourhood; and he was powerless to avenge her. Humble himself as he might to their level, the fisherman could not forget that it was the young Graf von Königstein who was thus domesticated beneath his roof; and as time wore on, he trembled to think how all this might end. Should he even preserve the honour of his beloved Mina, her peace of mind would be gone for ever, and she would be totally unfitted for the existence of toil and poverty, which was her birthright. He could not endure this cruel thought for ever in silence, and on the evening in which we have introduced the orphans to our readers, he had profited by the temporary absence of Mina to pour out before the young count all the treasure of wretchedness which he had so long concealed. Elric started as the frightful fact burst upon him. He had already spurned the world's

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