wretchedly; I should hardly know you. I saw Father Felix ere I set out in search of you; he bade me commend him to you, and sends you word that our sweet lady is better, and his hopes are brightening. The deadly trance into which yesterday's shock threw her is past—she knows those around her, she recollects what has happened, and is only impatient to quit her bed, and be far from Marchfeldt. He has this restlessness to combat; but he has given her a composing medicine, and, when she sleeps, he will keep his promise and meet you in the chapel."

Alice, who forgot her recent conversion to Stephen's faith, now cast on him à triumphant glance.

"Good man," said she, "trust me next time! I have told thee often, and I tell thee now, that if children take at once to a man, it is as sure a sign that there's no harm in him, as that it will rain when that bit of salt moistens."

"I hope, sir," said Stephen, “you will forget what I said; but my lady's illness put me beside myself, and, in the soreness of my heart, I could have quarrelled with one of my own little ones. Father Felix and Mr. Conrade would have nothing to say to one that deserved to be ill thought of-I hope you will forget it, sir!"

"I will forgive it, honest Stephen, on condition you retain that purse, but I will not forget it :-I will remember it, be assured, though not in malice; and, when I am wearied and disgusted by the corruption and treachery the world teems with, I will turn my sick thought for refuge to the simple, zealous integrity I have met in thy cottage!"

So saying, he crossed the threshold, followed by Conrade, and again bent his way towards the scene of his midnight vigils.

CHAPTER II.

"Oh, God! I could be bounded in a nut-shell, And count myself a king of infinite space, Were it not that I have bad dreams."

"Which dreams, indeed, are ambition !"

TIME lapsed, and as it lapsed, the malady of the Baroness subsided. Casimir, meanwhile, fixed his head-quarters with his friends Stephen and Alice; but his incessant haunt was the chapel or other immediate precincts of the castle. To enter the castle Father Felix in vain invited him: a certain instinctive sense of propriety warned him to avoid such a step as a trespass, although he would have given half the world to feel himself beneath the same roof with his idol; nay, perhaps, to cross the very gallery in which her apartment stood. None, however, save a lover of "the olden time," a lover

à l'outrance, can understand or justly appreciate such privileges. As the health of the Baroness improved daily, and not a shadow of danger remained to appal the most anxious, Vallenstein recalled to mind the ties which summoned him to Prague. Inured from boyhood to military precision, he had never perhaps known what it was to allow his inclination to supersede his duty: now, for the first time, the struggle between these rivals was strong and fierce, till they came to a compromise; for the young Count determined to wait only till he could obtain one stolen look at the Baroness, and then fly to his father. Soon after, the Lady of Marchfeldt was emancipated from the confinement of her own chamber, with the advice of Father Felix, she took the air on the ramparts; for the season being far advanced, that elevated promenade was preferred, as being farther removed from the damps which rose thick and heavy from the river. By this ar

rangement Vallenstein obtained the indulgence he coveted, though, like other privileges to which we have alluded, its value lay chiefly in the rate set on it by him who desired it; for Louisa was wrapped in a thick Polish mantle of sable, and on her head was a cap of the same material; so that, except to a lover, neither face nor figure would have been recognizable. Fenced as she was from the weather, its shrewd temper pierced her fragile frame, so that she but appeared and retired. As Vallenstein's eye traced the receding form, his breast swelled high with emotion.

"Thank Heaven!" said he, "she will not die! Had Wolfstein caused the death of that creature, his dark soul would have triumphed; for such are the achievements in which he glories!"

Father Felix now ventured to hope that the Baroness and her suite might set forward to Vienna in a week; for winter. was coming apace, and the good Friar