"All this flashed across me at the instant, and I believe my countenance showed it, for he remarked the change, and exclaimed, 'O, heavens! am I so happy as to have confessed my breach of duty and honor, and yet not be punished by your indignation? O! beautiful and dear cousin, say in words as well as in looks that you do not despise and hate me, and will not drive me from your presence-say this, and I may still be happy.' "Believe me, prince,' said I, 'in this respect I am all you can wish. As we neither of us knew the other, you cannot wonder that when you came to us, I felt prepared to fulfil this engagement more out of duty to a parent who loves me better than himself, than from affection for a person, however esteemed, whom I had never seen. And as you cannot be offended at this, so neither can I, that you are in the same situation; and this I should say, if even your heart was not as you tell me, occupied elsewhere. But you must now go on,' continued I (for I felt gaily), and inform me who it is that has made you her conquest-who that is to be my new cousin whom I dare say I shall love. Some distinguished person of the Prussian nobility, no doubt; some happy lady of the court.' 6 "At this his countenance again fell, and his old gloom came over him, and, with a melancholy shake of the head, a deep sigh escaped him when he said, 'No. And yet,' added he, why should I be ashamed of virtue, delicacy, and lovely beauty, all united with natural elegance, which equals, or rather exceeds, in interest, all that I ever saw in any court?" Why, indeed?' said I. But after thus raising my own interest about this unknown lady, will you not gratify it? will you not tell me who she is, and the history of your attachment? Indeed I think I have some right to know.' 666 But "Indeed, my amiable cousin, I think you have, and shall,' returned he; but at this moment I am too agitated, too suddenly raised from misery to happiness, to possess my faculties clear enough to give you proper possession of the facts. I have already begun, and with midnight labour, have almost finished a candid relation of them all—all which drew me into this position; thinking that the time might come, as it has, when it might be necessary, if not for my vindication, at least to explain a conduct which must have appeared so mysterious. One hour more applied to it, and it shall be laid before you, and God send that you may think me excusable' "As you may suppose, I readily assented to this; he sought and kissed my hand, which I could not well refuse, and we both left the summer-house with lighter hearts than we entered it. "At dinner we were both better company, which made my father feel so too, for he acknowledged that Adolphus's determined melancholy had both puzzled and hurt him. "In the evening we walked again, and he then put a packet into my hands, which he called his narrative. He wished, he said, that he could have written it in English, or that I could have read it in German; as it was, he had put it down in French, such as it was. "On receiving it, I became so impatient for its contents, that I shortened my walk, and begged to return with it to the house, which he did not oppose. And as I returned, I could not help thinking, as God generally tempers evil with good, that if my poor Foljambe's life was to be shortened, there was at least this attendant good upon that evil, that a quarrel, perhaps fatal to both him and Adolphus, had been avoided. For, with my brother's vehemence and proud spirit, he would never have allowed what he would have called this affront, on the part of the prince, to pass unrevenged. This concealment of the engagement too from him, in consequence of this unfortunate violence of his passions, was a proof of my dear father's quiet sagacity, I hasten, however, to the contents of the packet." CHAPTER XXIII. THE PRINCE'S NARRATIVE. Florizel. I bless the time When my good falcon made her flight across Thy father's ground. Or I'll be thine, my fair, Or not my father's; for I cannot be Mine own; nor any thing to any, if I be not thine. To this I am most constant, Polixenes. This is the prettiest low-born lass that ever Too noble for this place. SHAKSPEARE.-Winter's Tale. No trifling events are announced in the mottoes I have chosen for this chapter, and well do they develop what I have to relate. I therefore proceed, without comment, to record, though I abridge, the narrative which the prince, according to his intimation, laid before the astonished Bertha. "When my father, Prince Frederick," said Adolphus in his narrative," announced to me this engagement, made when we were children, and unknown to each other, I had but just got my commission in my father's regiment, and it was a question whether he should not send me to England to make. acquaintance with, and cultivate the charming person to whom I was thus betrothed. Had he done so, much affliction would have been spared; for who that had seen her could fail to love her? But, upon deliberation, the relations between Prussia and Austria being disturbed, I was not allowed to depart from my post, and afterwards, I conceived such a dread of having my affections thus fettered, that I sought, by every means in my power, to postpone a visit to which I had taken an inconceivable dislike. Even my curiosity could not excite me to it; and, as it was settled that the contract should not be fulfilled till I was three-and-twenty, I the more easily found reasons to persuade my father not to hurry the visit. Sometimes it was the military, sometimes the court service; for I was a cambellan to the king. But the most persuasive inducement was my wish to study at the university of Weimar, where accordingly passed three years-with the intervals which it was necessary to pass with my regiment at the reviews, and now and then an attendance at court. "For the first of these years study was very sweet to me, for I enjoyed the instruction and friendship of Goethe; and though perhaps was not quite pleased with having been betrothed from infancy from family views, where my heart had never been consulted, yet the universal and uniform account I had received of the accomplishments, virtues, and beauty of my noble cousin, while it flattered my hopes, left my mind and heart perfectly free to engage in literature, or other pursuits and exercises, suitable to my age and profession. "Among others, I felt a passion common to all Germans, especially princes, for hunting the wild boar; and to enjoy this, I not only profited by every thing like vacation from study, but frequently played truant from my tutor, who excused it, partly from good-nature, partly from thinking the diversion so noble. "Most of these excursions were unknown to my father. In one of them an adventure befel me, the consequences of which materially affected all my pursuits and views in life. I will relate it in all simplicity and truth, without attempting to varnish any part of it by a partial representation, or to conceal my own weakness, in what I felt and what have. done. "At the end of a long day's chace of the boar, I was returning to the town of Eisenach, where for a few days I had established my quarters; the garde-de-foret had left me with the dogs, and I was alone, when a fresh boar suddenly broke from a covert, and made at first as if it would attack me; but, my horse plunging much, it turned and took to flight. My ardour was such, that, totally mindless that my companions had left me, I pursued it, though with difficulty, for the forest was almost trackless. Its gloom, too, adding to the darkness of an autumnal evening, left me not merely incapable of farther sport, but perplexed me how to find my way out of it. In fact, I believe I wandered in circles, so that I was completely overtaken by night, without seeming to have advanced a yard towards any beaten road that might lead to the babitation of man. I found afterwards that every step I had taken had carried me round and round the town of Eisenach. "In this difficulty, and with the pleasant prospect of passing the night with no bed but the cold ground, I was relieved by hearing the bark of a dog, and soon after seeing a light, which shot apparently from the window of a cottage, I of course approached it, and after some parley with a man, who seemed the owner, and questioned me much as to my business, and how I came there, I was admitted. "I did not say who I was; but my regimentals shewing I was an officer of Prussia, I was received as such, and made welcome as long as I chose to stay. This, however, was dif ficult to settle; for I was not only several miles from my place of rest, but it was totally impossible to find the way without a guide; and as the host was the only man on the spot, he could not, he said, well leave his family, consisting of three females-Eisenach, too, being a fortified town, the gates would be shut. It was therefore settled that I should remain all night, with such accommodation as they could give me. "My host, who was a der forster, or sous garpede-foret, undertook also to take care of my horse, for which he was, in truth, much better provided than for myself, the stables, to which his cottage was merely an appendage, having been erected for the use of the Duke of Weimar, when he came to hunt in the forest. "As to my bed, by a piece of good luck, as my host said, there was not much difficulty for that night; for a lady and her daughter, who had lodged with them for some time, and had the only good rooms in the house, were absent that day at Eisenach, and would not return till the morrow, so that I might have their bed, which, being the frau's own, said the der forster, was an exceeding good one. "The arrangement was soon made, and after a supper, homely enough, I was conducted up stairs into a room, large for the house, and so furnished that I might have thought myself at Weimar or Berlin. At first I hesitated to make use of it; but both host and hostess assured me that the lady, who was the most kindly person alive, except her daughter, who was equal to her in obligingness, would be quite pleased to |