him that she spoke, reached the spot, a grasped within his own; and he began to second figure sprang from a sitting position, understand that he was not alone on and stood before him. The young count earth. 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.

'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 sunIt was that of a young girl in the first beam of his home. He was not long ere dawn of her beauty. The glow of fifteen he heard of the meeting under the aldersummers was on her cheek, the light of trees; and poor and powerless as he was, heaven dwelt in the depths of her dark blue he resolved, as he kissed the pure brow of eyes, whose lashes, long and lustrous, tem- his daughter when she lay down to rest, pered without concealing their brightness. to remonstrate with the Herr Graf, that his A flood of hair of that precious shade of pure one might be left unto him pure. He auburn which seems to catch the sunbeams, did so on the morrow, when once more, 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. Ner figure was perfect, and bending slightly forward, half in fear and half in shame, looked as though "Is this well, Herr Graf?" asked the a sound would startle and impel it into father, in a voice which was full of tears; flight. The lips, parted by the same impulse," the strong against the weak, the rich revealed teeth like ivory; and the whole against the poor, the proud against the aspect and attitude of the girl was so lovely humble? Have pity upon me, I have but that Canova might have created his masterpiece 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 honor 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 VOL. VIII. No. III.

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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 peasant-maiden. 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.

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 again 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 coinfort at her hearth; and my labor 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

66

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.

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 rumor 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 Surely I dream!" murmured the example of her mother and the force of cirold man, passing his hard hand across cumstances. The one great end of her his brow. My child is so young-so ig-existence was now the honor 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.

norant."

"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 grep 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 remembered 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 be contemplate the departure of his sister from the dwelling of her ancestors without a

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

sun-bright eyes to those of her tutor, and found its solution there.

countess at once resumed her seat beside the stove, and drawing her frame towards her, affected to be intently occupied on the elaborate piece of embrodiery which it contained; but Elric had less self-government.

and unequal steps: and the moisture startHe paced the floor with hurried ed to his brow as he strove to control the emotion which shook his frame. At length he spoke, and his voice was so hoarse, so deep, and so unnatural, that the young gräfine involuntarily started.

"Stephanie!" he said; "the moment is at last come in which we must under-. stand each other without disguise. We are alone in the world-we are strangers in heart-as utterly strangers as on the day when we buried our last parent. I sought in vain, long years ago, to draw the bond of relationship closer, but such was not your will. You had decided that my youth, and my manhood alike should be one long season of weariness and isolation. I utter no reproach, it was idle in me to believe that without feeling for yourself you could feel for me.

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. Already 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 neighborhood; 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 honor 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 cape, that I had no resource; but you You knew that I had no esin silence, and on the evening in which we cared not for this, and you have lived on have introduced the orphans to our readers, among the puerilities of which you have he had profited by the temporary absence made duties, and the prejudices of which you of Mina to pour out before the young have made chains of iron, without rememcount all the treasure of wretchedness which bering their effect on me. he had so long concealed. I have endurElric started ed this long, too long; I have endured it as the frightful fact burst upon him. He uncomplainingly, but the limits of that enhad already spurned the world's sneer, but durance are now overpast. he could not brook that its scorn should rest upon his innocent young bride.

"Enough, old man!" he said, hoarsely; "enough. These busy tongues shall be stayed. These wonder-mongers shall be silenced. And when once Mina has become my wife, woe be to him who shall dare to couple her pure image with suspicion!"

we must be more, far more, or nothing to Henceforth each other."

Königstein," said the lady, rising coldly
"I understand your meaning, Gräf von
and haughtily from her seat; "there is to
be a bridal beneath the roof of
ancestors; the daughter of a serf is to
your noble
take our mother's place and to sit in our
mother's chair. Is it not so? Then hear
me in my turn; and I am calm, you see,
for this is an hour for which I have been
long prepared. Hear me swear that, while
I have life, this shall never be !"

laughter by which the count replied.
There was rage as well as scorn in the

He left the hut with a hasty step, and was soon lost among the dense shadows of the neighboring forest. A bitter task was before him, but it was too late to shrink from its completion; yet still he lingered, for he dared not picture to himself what might be the result of his explanation with his Beneath the roof of my father was I sister. born," pursued the countess; We have already described their meet-neath his roof will I die. I, at least, have " and being; and now, having acquainted the read-never sullied it by one thought of dishoner with the excited state of mind and feel-or. I can look around me boldly, upon ing in which the young count entered his these portraits of our honored race, for the dreary home, we will rejoin the noble or-spirits of the dead will not blush over my phans in the apartment to which they had degeneracy. Mistake me not. My days returned from the supper-room. The shall end here where they began; and no

churl's daughter shall sit with me at my ancestral hearth."

"Stephanie, Stephanie, forbear!" exclaimed the count, writhing like one in physical agony. "You know not the spirit that you brave. Hitherto I have been supine, for hitherto my existence has not been worth a struggle; to-day it is otherwise; I will submit no longer to a code of narrow-hearted bigotry. You say truly. There will ere long be a bridal in my father's house, and purer or fairer bride never pledged her faith to one of his ancient race."

None fairer, perchance," said the lady with a withering gesture of contempt; but profane not the glorious blood that fills your veins, and that ought now to leap in hot reproach to your false heart, by slandering the blameless dead! Purer, said you? The breath of slander has already fastened upon the purity you seek to vaunt. Your miracle of virtue has long been the proverb of the chaste."

The young man struck his brow heavily with his clenched hand, and sank into a chair.

"Once more," he gasped out, "I warn you to beware. You are awakening a demon within me! Do you not see, weak woman, that you are yourself arming me with weapons against your pride? If slander has indeed rested upon the young and innocent head of her whom you affect to despise, by whom did that slander

dared to couple your name with that of a beggar's child? Suppose that others spoke upon that hint, do you deem that I am likely to tremble beneath your frown?"

"Devil!" muttered the young man from between his clenched teeth; "you may have cause! Thus, then, gräfine, you have dishonored your sister," he said after a pause.

The lady threw back her head scornfully.

"Do you still persist?" she asked, as her heavy brow gathered into a storm.

"Now more than ever. Those who have done the wrong shall repair it, and that speedily. You have declared that you will die beneath the roof of your ancestors; be it so: but that roof shall be shared by your brother's wife; and woe be to them who cause the first tear that she shall shed here!"

"Madman and fool!" exclaimed the exasperated countess, whose long pent-up passions at length burst their bounds, and swept down all before them: complete this disgraceful compact if you dare! Remember, that although your solitary life might have enabled you to marry without the interference of the Emperor, had you chosen a wife suited to your birth and rank, one word from me will end your disgraceful dream; or should you still persist you will exchange your birthplace for a prison. This word should have been said ere now, but that I shrank from exposing come?" your degeneracy; trust no longer, however, "Herein we are at least agreed," an- to my forbearance: the honor of our race swered the countess, in the same cold and unimpassioned tone in which she had all along spoken; "had you, Herr Graf, never forgotten what was due to yourself and to your race, the fisher's daughter might have mated with one of her own class, and Elric gasped for breath. He well knew so have escaped; but you saw fit to drag the stern and unflinching nature of his sisher forth from the slough which was her ter, she felt that he was indeed in her natural patrimony into the light, that scorn power. The whole happiness of his future might point its finger at her and blight her life hung upon that hour, but he scorned as it passed her by." to give a pledge which he had not the "Could I but learn whose was that dev-strength, nay more, which he had no longer ilish finger-could I but know who first even the right, to keep. dared to breathe a whisper against her Beware, Stephanie, beware!" h exfair fame-" claimed in a tone of menace; alike of what you say and of what you do; for you are rapidly bursting the bonds by which we are united."

"What vengeance would you wreak upon the culprit, Count von Königstein? Suppose I were to tell you that it was I, who to screen the honor of our house, to screen your own, rebutted the rumor which was brought to me of your mad folly, and bade the gossips look closer ere they

is in my hands, and I will save it at whatever cost. Either pledge yourself upon the spot to forego this degrading fancy, or the sun of to-morrow shall not set before I depart for Vienna."

66

"beware

"You have yourself already done so," was the bitter retort; "when you sought to make me share your affection with a base-born hind's daughter, you released

me from those ties which I no longer recognise."

"Are you seeking to drive me to extremity ?"

a line of passion be traced upon her calm, pale face.

Before the count retired to rest that night, he heard the voice of his sister desiring that a seat might be secured for her in the post-carriage which passed through Nienburg during the following day, on its way to Vienna. She had uttered no idle threat, and Elric was not ignorant of the stringency of that authority which she was about to evoke. Should his intended mar

"I am endeavoring to awaken you to a sense of duty and of honor." "Stephanie, we must part! The same roof can no longer cover us. You have aroused an evil spirit within my breast which I never knew abided there. Take your inheritance and depart." "Never! I have already told you that Iriage once reach the ears of the emperor, have sworn to live and die under this roof, and that while I have life you shall be saved from dishonor.. You dare not put me forth, and I will perform my vow."

As he ceased speaking the countess reseated herself, with a sarcastic smile playing about her lip, but the tempest which was raging in the breast of Elric was frightful. His hands were so tightly clenched that the blood had started beneath the nails. The veins of his throat and forehead were swollen like cords, and his thin lips were livid and trembling. As he passed athwart the apartment he suddenly paused; a deadly paleness overspread his countenance, and he gasped for breath, and clung to a chair, like one suddenly smitten with paralysis. Then came a rush of crimson over his features, as though his heart had rejected the coward blood which had just fled to it, and flung it back as a damning witness to his burning brow. And still the lady wrought upon her tapestry with a steady hand beneath the broad light of the lamp; nor could

Mina was lost for ever. Driven almost to frenzy, the young man raised in his powerful hand the heavy lamp which still burnt upon the table, and eagerly made the circuit of the room, pausing before each picture, as though still he hoped to find among those of his female ancestors a precedent for his own wild passion; but he looked in vain. Upon all he traced the elaborately-emblazoned shield and the pompous title. He had long known that it was so; but at that moment he scrutinized them closely, as though he anticipated that a miracle would be wrought in his behalf. This done, he once more replaced the lamp on its accustomed stand; and after glaring for awhile into the flame, as if to brave the fire that burnt pale beside that which flashed from beneath his own dark brows, he walked slowly to a cabinet which occupied an angle of the apartment.

It contained a slender collection of shells and minerals, the bequest of Father Eberhard to his pupil on his departure from Nienburg; a few stuffed birds, shot and preserved by the count himself; and, finally, a few chemical preparations with which the good priest had tried sundry simple experiments as a practical illustration of his lessons. It was to this latter division of the cabinet that the young man directed his attention. He deliberately lighted a small taper at the lamp, and then drew from their concealment sundry phials, containing various colored liquids. Of these he selected one two-thirds full of a white and limpid fluid, which he placed in his breast; and this done, he extinguished his taper, returned it to its niche, and, closing the cabinet, threw himself into a chair, pale, haggard, and panting.

He had not been seated many seconds when, at the sound of an approaching step, he lifted his aching head from his arm, and endeavored to assume an appearance of composure. It was that of the venerable woman who had been the favorite attendant