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On the opposite side, half way down the declivity, there stood a splendid mansion, evidently the abode of some one illustrious by the nobility either of wealth or birth. This was evidently the destination of the young man, for he walked straight towards it; although choosing, as if from caprice, a sunken path that looked like the bed of a rain-course. But on arriving within a short distance of the avenue, he suddenly turned away, and plunging into an ornamental wood, reached circuitously the garden wall, which he climbed as stealthily, and almost as dextrously as a cat. After looking carefully round to see that the coast was clear, he dropped as noiselessly down on the inner side, and made towards one of the wings of the building, which seemed appropriated to the sleeping apartments.

Here he paused to listen. All was silent. The air was faint with perfume, and the dying daylight had hardly power enough to disclose the forms or colours of the flowers which thus exhaled their evening incense. He unslung his guitar, and struck the chords, first softly, and then with a bolder touch. There was no reply. In a few minutes his hand wandered, as if unconsciously, into tune, and his lips, accustomed to accompany the sounds, emitted, in a low rich murmur, the following words :

I.

'Tis now the hour when blushing Day,
Like youthful bride to rest is stealing,

But coy to go, and loth to stay,

One doubtful smile is yet revealing.

But go, sweet Day, I would not woo

Thy stay with one poor verse of mine

Go, and thy veil of deepening hue

Will hide a brighter blush than thine.

II.

And hark! the twilight minstrel now
Sings to the lonely star of even-

So falls the music, faint and slow,
To youthful fancy's dreaming given.

But hush, sweet bird! I would not buy
Thy lay with one poor verse of mine-
Hush, lest thy murmured minstrelsy

Drown a far softer note than thine!

“Hush, dearest Carl!” cried a voice so exquisitely feminine, that it almost seemed to warrant the compliment implied in the song. It proceeded from the casement above the minstrel's head, but the speaker did not appear.

"Ida!" said the youth, sinking upon his knee; "arise, bright star, and let thy poet worship thee!" and he struck the guitar again with a bolder sweep, and was commencing one of those idolatrous strains in which it is the wont of lovers to adore their mistresses.

“Oh hush, for heaven's sake!” exclaimed the young lady, in a tone of unaffected terror and entreaty, as she bent out of the window. “And in sooth I would have cried hush before you had concluded, could I have found the heart. My mother's suspicions are now fairly awakened, and her prejudices-for I know they are but false, false, foolish prejudices-to all appearance confirmed. We can meet no more here—I fear, indeed, we can never meet again !”

"Prejudices!"

66

Ay, prejudices-do you find the news strange that I have repeated every evening for a month? My mother, in her ignorance of your real character, thinks you a spendthrift, a gamester, a dissipated, bold bad man!” "But you said, love, that these prejudices had been apparently confirmed?”

"And by one whom I have heard you term your friend-the young, rich, handsome, and noble baron of Wolfenstein."

Carl's hand grasped, as if by an involuntary motion,

the handle of a short sword, which he carried for defence beneath his frock, as he muttered half an oath, and gulped the other half down.

"How was this?" demanded he, in a voice broken with passion.

"Not intentionally, but rather, as it seemed to me, through careless folly than design. When the reports were mentioned he laughed at them, not as being false, but as being rather advantageous than otherwise to the character of a young man of spirit; and when he saw the impression made upon my mother, he endeavoured to excuse you, but in so equivocal a manner that her suspicions were fully confirmed."

66

Ida," said Carl, in great agitation, "this Wolfenstein loves you-he confided the secret to me before he knew that I loved you myself."

"And to me also," replied Ida; "but not yet to my mother. Good heaven, spare me that, or I am lost!" "And is it this man whose words can have weight with you on such a subject?"

“With me!" exclaimed Ida, bursting into tears; "Oh, Carl Benzel, is it you who asks? Have I not known you for more than a year, even as a sister knows her brother? Have I not wandered with you, night after night, through these garden walks, at the very hour when my mother believed you to be breathing the poisonous atmosphere of a gaming-house? Has a single thought of your soul been withheld from me? Do I not know you-although rash and hot-tempered, and too brave-to be good, and true, and high-minded, and purehearted? But what of that? I heard you reviled without uttering a word; and when my mother prophesied that your career was near its close, that your moderate fortune must touch upon exhaustion, and that in a

little while

you would find yourself an outcast and a beggar-I could but weep!"

"Heaven bless you! !"

"And then the fruits of long months of mean concealment were lost; my mother looked at me as if she would read my very soul, and I could but hide my face in my hands, and weep the more." Carl Benzel was silent for some moments. He stood, tall and still, in the shadow of the house, with his hat drawn over his brows, and his eyes fixed upon the ground.

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66 Ida," said he at last, but without looking up, " with you I am all that you have described. When we love, the mind reflects unconsciously the image of her who governs its pulses, just as the calm ocean gives back the radiant form of the moon. Aloneoh there it is!—when our good angel is absentwhen evil thoughts crowd in like demons-when the shadow of the black wing of the Tempter falls chill and heavy upon the heart—”

"Look up; let me see your face." Carl Benzel obeyed; and she could perceive, in the imperfect light, that it was as pale as marble.

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"Ida," said he, starting, "I fear you have accustomed yourself to think of me not as a brother but as a sister. The sexes are different in soul as well as body, and what we term, at the worst, folly, you will look upon as crime. Can you bear to hear the truth? When you know from my own lips that I have gamed, that I have plunged into dissipation, that I have impaired my estate, will you cast me off? will you wed the baron of Wolfenstein if your mother issues the command?"

"You do but mock me."

"O would to heaven I did! But speak, what is your

decision? The avowal I have made is only premature by one night, for to-morrow it was to have been my business here." Ida was weeping, but as much at the harshness, or rather hardness, of Carl's manner as at the disclosure.

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Speak," said he, more softly; "but remember that you know what I can be when you are with me, and that I have talked of follies which the sun shall never look upon again."

"Carl," replied Ida, after a momentary struggle, "the thought was in my heart when I came here to-night, but till now I believed that I should never have had the courage to give it utterance. I will save you, however, even from yourself, since your words imply that it is in my power to do so. You have often implored me to fly with you from my home, my friends, my mother-I consent ! There, take me, I am yours ! " and she leant suddenly out of the window, as if she would have thrown herself into his arms, while her. tears rained bright and fast upon his face.

"My noble Ida," exclaimed the lover, with a burst of enthusiasm.

"Stay not for speech," she continued, "for I am only amazed that we have been so long uninterrupted. To-morrow I shall be a prisoner. To-night it must be done or never. My money and jewels are at hand; in another minute I shall spring into your arms!" "Ida," cried Carl with a gasp, "I cannot permit this; take another day to prepare, and I shall be at your window at the accustomed hour."

،، Now or never. To-morrow I shall be a prisoner." "I will set you free!"

"A room is already preparing for me in the centre of the building."

"I shall reach it, were it in the centre of the earth!"

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