her head. Therefore, how can a love-affair arise there?"

"Your majesty has certainly lost sight of the lady?"

"She requested permission to withdraw herself from court after the death of her father; since then I have not seen her. Princess Theresa is my cousin-germaine on the mother's side. She visits her, and often tells me about her. She seems to enjoy being with her. But, my dear count, time has never improved the defects of a woman's plain face; time even makes ravages with us who have been endowed with beauty."

Your majesty knows," returned the Count, with a low reverence, "that I am quite inexperienced in such matters. But I hear from Father Franz and George Prey, that she has occupied herself much with her intellectual improvement, and I thought that this might be her charm."

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"A learned lady, then!" cried the Empress, in a tone of mockery. Oh, Count Kaunitz! whatever may have once been said of your tender heart, it must be long since you have bestowed your attention upon our sex, else you must have known that Van Swieten himself could have written no better recipe against love than the learning of a woman. Yet enough, my lord chancellor," said she, suddenly becoming the complete empress, "we will not occupy ourselves with this miracle to the detriment of our day's business-we await your report."

The Count arranged the papers he had brought, and the report commenced.

CHAPTER II.

THE subject of the foregoing conversation, the young Count von Lacy Wratislaw, as the family now called itself in honour of its ancestress's Bohemian possessions, was on the same day in his study, and read, with wrinkled brow, a long, closely written letter, the contents of which could be of no light or joyous description, for his handsome and youthful countenance expressed every sign of an unpleasant excitement. Now he seemed to have ended it, gloomily arose, opened a window, and gazed thoughtfully into the small garden of the house; he then walked through the room, sat down again, and referred to certain passages in the letter, but it still appeared the same.

He, however, not possessing the peculiarity of relieving himself by soliloquy, his state of mind remained a mystery to the uninitiated, until a door of the cabinet opened quickly, and the young Baron von Pölten entered with a light and joyous air.

"For me, the message you have given your valet is of no avail!" cried he, gaily; "for me you are at home, are you not?"

"If you do not of your own accord flee before my gloomy visage," returned Lacy, evidently relieved by the Baron's entrance. "But I am in a mood which I must, in truth, hesitate to impart to another, and, least of all, does one invite dear friends to share such enjoyment."

"Share!" laughed the Baron; "God defend me from it if sharing be the question? Take the half? No! I will not have the slightest portion of your forehead-wrinkles; but help you to chase them away; for that I am the man! Therefore, confess, confess! I bet, the eternally croaking old owl, your guardian, has written again, and now that for a whole year and a day I have merely learned that he torments you, I will learn wherefore he torments you-where he receives his authority over the man of eight-and-twenty! Ha! will you confess and convince yourself that I am the merriest, most extravagant, and yet the most faithful friend to my friends?"

"Of that I am firmly persuaded," answered Lacy; "yet I think," added he, smiling, "I am not to blame if you have not learned before as much as I myself know regarding my connexions, but your volatile mood has never made you really desire to learn these particulars."

"Now, however, I wish to learn more, for these wrinkles must away from your brow before you wait this evening upon the beautiful Baroness Binder. Therefore what right has this old advocate over you?"

Lacy took the letter from the table and said,

"The right of making me a poor man if I do

not return and marry his sixteen-year-old granddaughter!"

The Baron threw himself, with a loud burst of laughter, into a seat. "Pardon!" cried he, then. "Are not you the Count Lacy? Rightful heir to the lordship of Wratislaw? That is really too

mad!"

"It is a riddle," said Lacy. "But you will easily believe that I did not remain meek as a lamb. Upon coming of age I received, together with the surrender of the principal revenues, a clear and exemplary statement of my affairs, and all the bills and rules of management since the death of my uncle. I say together with these I received the codicil to the will of my uncle, who was the proudest man in the world, and one who thought most of ancestry-which codicil commanded me to raise the grand-daughter of this old Mr. Thomas Thyrnau to be Countess von Lacy, and my wife, or to expect that Thomas Thyrnau would reveal to me certain circumstances which would deprive me of the greater portion of my possessions. It was not in vain that I, in the meantime, had visited three universities to study the principles of law. Fully decided, I cast aside the demand of this codicil, which excited me to the highest degree, as was only to be expected in a young and proud man, who, at the very moment when he believed he had attained the greatest freedom, found himself subjected to a new and unbearable restraint-a restraint offensive, unjust, dishonouring, and whatsoever else was wanting to complete the measure of an intolerable

condition. I called upon Mr. Thomas Thyrnau to explain himself more explicitly, whilst I at the same time declared my own good right. This right he did not combat; but he warned me against resistance, and repeated that the right of fulfilling the declaration of the will was nevertheless there, but that he would never bring it forward if I would marry his grand-daughter."

"Rather would I let myself be hewn to pieces and trampled upon," cried the Baron, "or tramp through the land as a ballad-singer, or become one of Trenk's Pandures, or mend pens for the illustrious Count von Kaunitz, and wind up his twenty French watches! You will surely not be intimidated by this wily advocate? not be cheated of your rightful property?"

The brow of the young Count was somewhat flushed.

"I do not feel myself intimidated," said he, with a suppressed voice," and believe that I shall always remain a stranger to this sentiment. Do not confound with it reluctance to attack the last will of a man whom I must thank for every thing which I am. My uncle was the most noble, most magnanimous man the earth ever bore. His very failing, the hot blood of the Lacys, was, as it were, a forcing-heat for his virtues. But at the same time he was a man most proud of nobility, buried beneath genealogical-trees and family-archives, and surrounded by his ancestors as by a host of mail-clad spirits. But if the feeling of being able to look back upon a long line of distinguished ancestors