step. In short he was a new man, on that New
Year's-day.

"This is surely the beginning of a fever," said
the servitor.

The Baron was hardly out of sight, when
Stiegel had (not for the first time) to parry the
beak and spectacles of one whose fixed idea it
had long been to pry into those mysterious
chambers. Miss Sauerwein had heard from
Mistress Drieck that Baron Oranienberg had
found something. She wished to see if it was
what she had lost. But her curiosity got no
further than the door;—and the same was forthwith
shut in her face.

During the rest of the month she had ample
occupation, in which the entire town of
Schlettersheim was willing to take a substantial part.
The English beauty had bewitched the Baron.
No, the Baron had bewitched the English
beauty. The girl would go to no more balls,
and began to look quite unlike herself. So did he,
in his splendid riding-suit of purple velvet, and
with half the hair taken off his face! No wonder
that his servant (a good old-fashioned creature)
was entirely disconsolate at such doings!—
What was more out of all character, was the
courier in livery who, twice a week, arrived at
Schlettersheim with a box as big as a boor's
house—the box filled with flowers which had
no business to flower in January: roses—yes,
and jessamines too. No more sitting up at
nights now. And the Baron could talk (listeners
had ascertained) bravely enough to Miss Helen
when they were not overheard, and could make
her laugh. Yes, could make her laugh, and
could laugh himself, too.

A year of life's business had gone over in six
weeks. There must have been a fate in that
diamond heart. Helen was free to marry any
one whom she pleased to marry, the Baron was
a Quixote, declining a dower with his bride.
But when had there ever been, when would
there ever be (said Lena, and Lotte, and a
score of wishful girls besides), such a lover
as the Baron! Her own room at Castle
Oranienberg was to be hung with cloth of gold.
There had been sixteen Arab horses sent for
that she might choose for herself one to ride.
The wedding was to be strictly private, but
each one of her six favourite playmates had
received a present of a diamond heart, containing
a lock of her hair. "I can spare them no
more such tokens," the Baron had said, playfully;
"so it is well that you have only half a
dozen friends, dear Helen." "Ah!" he thought
within himself, when he sat alone, "I could die
to gratify her wishes before she utters them."

"LIVE to do so!" breathed, in a clear whisper,
the sorrowful voice of his better Angel, the
Spirit of the white leaves in his book of dreams.
"I, who have shared thy watchings, who have
sat beside thy pillow, who have filled thy heart
when it ached because of its solitude, will not
take leave of thee for ever, without a parting
blessing! Have thy wish. Live to gratify her
wishes before she utters them."

"A blessing?" was repeated; and not by an
echo, but by the prompting Spirit of the grey
leaves in the book of registered suspicions and
mistrusts. "No, a CURSE. Let the faithless
mortal take it, and good luck to his profit by
it!"

The sweat was on the Baron's brow as he
started awake in the silence of the dark chamber;
or had he been asleep, or no? He struck
a light, not expecting, however, to find traces
of any visitor, since he had dreamed at that
hour of the night many and many a time ere
now, and the conflicting Voices were not new
to his sleeping or his waking fancy! Well!
He was to hear them no more! The preparations
for the next day, laid in rich and exact
order by Stiegel, reminded him that the end of
his strange, solitary, unreal existence had come.
He was thenceforth no longer his own. His
book was to be closed for ever. Since New
Year's-eve he had not once opened it, consciously,
and yet—before him, on a white page and on a
grey page too—almost the last empty pages in
the volume—there stood written in a character
which he knew how to read:

"LIVE to gratify her wishes before she utters
them."

Only Madame Drieck's sister, her husband
Counsellor von Kogel, and Stiegel, were
witnesses of the wedding. Helen's rakish father
did not care enough for her to be present;—and
she would have no parade. This made the
ceremony somewhat cheerless and peculiar: the
rather as Pastor Gurkel had been warned that
the Baron would only endure a sermon three
minutes long. The footsteps of the new-married
pair sounded distinct and loud, as they
went down the aisle to the bridal carriages after
the registers were signed: the hour of the ceremony
having been changed purposely to avoid a
crowd without.

"What is this, Stiegel?" said the Baron,
turning his head quickly, in the porch. " I
thought it had been distinctly understood that
no one was to be told. Here is a stranger.
You have been talking."

"No, truly he has not," was the answer of
the interloper who stepped forward, having
overheard the words; " but when I heard
that my dear pretty Helen was going to be
married, it was enough for me! I found out
the rest for myself. Here I am, love, to
wish you joy; and to take the second kiss from,
the bride!"

The bride drew back, blushing crimson. " A
more beautiful youth than the stranger,"
Madame von Kogel declared, " was never seen in
Schlettersheim just her age, too. And what
curling hair, and, Heavens! what proud pouting
lips, and what rich black eyes!"

"My cousin Reginald, George," said the
bride, nestling close to her husband, and adding
softly, "I did not expect this."

"And the most loving of her rejected lovers,
Baron Oranienberg, she might have said. You
should be a proud man to-day, sir. Let me wish