sun-bright eyes to those of her tutor, and found its solution there.

The lovers cared not for time, for they were happy; and the seasons had once revolved, and when the winter snows had forbidden them to pursue their daily task in the valley or upon the hill-side, the last descendant of the counts of Königstein had taken his place beside the fisher's hearth, without bestowing one thought upon its poverty. But the father's heart was full of care. Already had idle tongues breathed foul suspicions of his pure and innocent child. She was becoming the subject of a new legend for the gossips of the neighborhood; and he was powerless to avenge her. Humble himself as he might to their level, the fisherman could not forget that it was the young Graf von Königstein who was thus domesticated beneath his roof; and as time wore on, he trembled to think how all this might end. Should he even preserve the honor of his beloved Mina, her peace of mind would be gone for ever, and she would be totally unfitted for the existence of toil and poverty, which was her birthright. He could not endure this cruel thought for ever in silence, and on the evening in which we have introduced the orphans to our readers, he had profited by the temporary absence of Mina to pour out before the young count all the treasure of wretchedness which he had so long concealed. Elric started as the frightful fact burst upon him. He had already spurned the world's sneer, but he could not brook that its scorn should rest upon his innocent young bride.

"Enough, old man!" he said, hoarsely; enough. These busy tongues shall be stayed. These wonder-mongers shall be silenced. And when once Mina has become my wife, woe be to him who shall dare to couple her pure image with suspicion!"

countess at once resumed her seat beside the stove, and drawing her frame towards her, affected to be intently occupied on the elaborate piece of embrodiery which it contained; but Elric had less self-government. He paced the floor with hurried and unequal steps: and the moisture started to his brow as he strove to control the emotion which shook his frame. At length he spoke, and his voice was so hoarse, so deep, and so unnatural, that the young gräfine involuntarily started.

"Stephanie!" he said; "the moment is at last come in which we must understand each other without disguise. We are alone in the world-we are strangers in heart-as utterly strangers as on the day when we buried our last parent. I sought in vain, long years ago, to draw the bond of relationship closer, but such was not your will. You had decided that my youth and my manhood alike should be one long season of weariness and isolation. I utter no reproach, it was idle in me to believe that without feeling for yourself you could feel for me.

You knew that I had no escape, that I had no resource; but you cared not for this, and you have lived on among the puerilities of which you have made duties, and the prejudices of which you have made chains of iron, without remembering their effect on me. I have endured this long, too long; I have endured it uncomplainingly, but the limits of that endurance are now overpast. Henceforth we must be more, far more, or nothing to each other."

"I understand your meaning, Gräf von Königstein," said the lady, rising coldly and haughtily from her seat; "there is to be a bridal beneath the roof of your noble ancestors; the daughter of a serf is to take our mother's place and to sit in our mother's chair. Is it not so? Then hear me in my turn; and I am calm, you see, for this is an hour for which I have been long prepared. Hear me swear that, while I have life, this shall never be !"

There was rage as well as scorn in the laughter by which the count replied.

He left the hut with a hasty step, and was soon lost among the dense shadows of the neighboring forest. A bitter task was before him, but it was too late to shrink from its completion; yet still he lingered, for he dared not picture to himself what might be the result of his explanation with his "Beneath the roof of my father was I sister. born," pursued the countess; " and beWe have already described their meet-neath his roof will I die. I, at least, have ing; and now, having acquainted the read- never sullied it by one thought of dishoner with the excited state of mind and feel-or. I can look around me boldly, upon ing in which the young count entered his dreary home, we will rejoin the noble orphans in the apartment to which they had returned from the supper-room. The

these portraits of our honored race, for the spirits of the dead will not blush over my degeneracy. Mistake me not. My days shall end here where they began; and no

churl's daughter shall sit with me at my dared to couple your name with that of a ancestral hearth." beggar's child? Suppose that others spoke Stephanie, Stephanie, forbear!" ex-upon that hint, do you deem that I am claimed the count, writhing like one in likely to tremble beneath your frown?" physical agony. You know not the spir- "Devil!" muttered the young man from it that you brave. Hitherto I have been between his clenched teeth; "you may supine, for hitherto my existence has not have cause! Thus, then, gräfine, you been worth a struggle; to-day it is otherwise; I will submit no longer to a code of narrow-hearted bigotry. You say truly. There will ere long be a bridal in my father's house, and purer or fairer bride never pledged her faith to one of his aucient race.'

None fairer, perchance," said the lady with a withering gesture of contempt; "but profane not the glorious blood that fills your veins, and that ought now to leap in hot reproach to your false heart, by slandering the blameless dead! Purer, said you? The breath of slander has already fastened upon the purity you seek to vaunt. Your miracle of virtue has long been the proverb of the chaste."

The young man struck his brow heavily with his clenched hand, and sank into a chair.

have dishonored your sister," he said after a pause.

The lady threw back her head scornfully.

"Do you still persist?" she asked, as her heavy brow gathered into a storm.

Now more than ever. Those who have done the wrong shall repair it, and that speedily. You have declared that you will die beneath the roof of your ancestors; be it so: but that roof shall be shared by your brother's wife; and woe be to them who cause the first tear that she shall shed here!"

"Madman and fool!" exclaimed the exasperated countess, whose long pent-up passions at length burst their bounds, and swept down all before them: "complete this disgraceful compact if you dare! Remember, that although your solitary life. "Once more," he gasped out, "I warn might have enabled you to marry without you to beware. You are awakening a de- the interference of the Emperor, had you mon within me! Do you not see, weak chosen a wife suited to your birth and woman, that you are yourself arming me rank, one word from me will end your diswith weapons against your pride? If slan- graceful dream; or should you still persist der has indeed rested upon the young and you will exchange your birthplace for a innocent head of her whom you affect prison. This word should have been said to despise, by whom did that slander ere now, but that I shrank from exposing come?" your degeneracy; trust no longer, however, "Herein we are at least agreed," an- to my forbearance: the honor of our race swered the countess, in the same cold and unimpassioned tone in which she had all along spoken; "had you, Herr Graf, never forgotten what was due to yourself and to your race, the fisher's daughter might have mated with one of her own class, and so have escaped; but you saw fit to drag her forth from the slough which was her natural patrimony into the light, that scorn might point its finger at her and blight her as it passed her by."

is in my hands, and I will save it at whatever cost. Either pledge yourself upon the spot to forego this degrading fancy, or the sun of to-morrow shall not set before I depart for Vienna.”

Elric gasped for breath. He well knew the stern and unflinching nature of his sister, she felt that he was indeed in her power. The whole happiness of his future life hung upon that hour, but he scorned to give a pledge which he had not the "Could I but learn whose was that dev-strength, nay more, which he had no longer ilish finger-could I but know who first even the right, to keep. dared to breathe a whisper against her fair fame-"

"Beware, Stephanie, beware!" he exclaimed in a tone of menace; "beware alike of what you say and of what you do; for you are rapidly bursting the bonds by which we are united."

"What vengeance would you wreak upon the culprit, Count von Königstein? Suppose I were to tell you that it was I, who to screen the honor of our house, to "You have yourself already done so," your own, rebutted the rumor was the bitter retort; when you sought which was brought to me of your mad folly, to make me share your affection with a and bade the gossips look closer ere they base-born hind's daughter, you released

Screen

me from those ties which I no longer re-a line of passion be traced upon her calm, cognise."

"Are you seeking to drive me to extremity?"

"I am endeavoring to awaken you to a sense of duty and of honor." "Stephanie, we must part! roof can no longer cover us. aroused an evil spirit within

The same
You have
my breast

pale face.

Before the count retired to rest that night, he heard the voice of his sister desiring that a seat might be secured for her in the post-carriage which passed through Nienburg during the following day, on its way to Vienna. She had uttered no idle threat, and Elric was not ignorant of the

which I never knew abided there. Take stringency of that authority which she was your inheritance and depart." about to evoke. Should his intended mar

"Never! I have already told you that Iriage once reach the ears of the emperor, have sworn to live and die under this roof, and that while I have life you shall be saved from dishonor. You dare not put me forth, and I will perform my vow."

Mina was lost for ever. Driven almost to frenzy, the young man raised in his powerful hand the heavy lamp which still burnt upon the table, and eagerly made the circuit of the room, pausing before each picture, as though still he hoped to find among those of his female ancestors a precedent for his own wild passion; but he looked in vain. Upon all he traced the elaborately-emblazoned shield and the pompous title. He had long known that it was so; but at that moment he scrutinized them closely, as though he anticipated that a miracle would be wrought in his behalf. This done, he once more replaced the lamp on its accustomed stand; and after glaring for awhile into the flame, as if to brave the fire that burnt pale beside that which flashed from beneath his own dark brows, he walked slowly to a cabinet which occupied an angle of the apartment.

It contained a slender collection of shells and minerals, the bequest of Father Eberhard to his pupil on his departure from Nienburg; a few stuffed birds, shot and preserved by the count himself; and, finally, a few chemical preparations with which the good priest had tried sundry simple experiments as a practical illustration of his lessons. It was to this latter division of the

tention. He deliberately lighted a small taper at the lamp, and then drew from their concealment sundry phials, containing various colored liquids. Of these he selected one two-thirds full of a white and limpid fluid, which he placed in his breast; and this done, he extinguished his taper, returned it to its niche, and, closing the cabinet, threw himself into a chair, pale, haggard, and panting.

As he ceased speaking the countess reseated herself, with a sarcastic smile playing about her lip, but the tempest which was raging in the breast of Elric was fright-cabinet that the young man directed his atful. His hands were so tightly clenched that the blood had started beneath the nails. The veins of his throat and forehead were swollen like cords, and his thin lips were livid and trembling. As he passed athwart the apartment he suddenly paused; a deadly paleness overspread his countenance, and he gasped for breath, and clung to a chair, like one suddenly smitten with paralysis. Then came a rush of crimson over his features, as though his heart had rejected the He had not been seated many seconds coward blood which had just fled to it, and when, at the sound of an approaching step, flung it back as a damning witness to his he lifted his aching head from his arm, and burning brow. And still the lady wrought endeavored to assume an appearance of upon her tapestry with a steady hand be-composure. It was that of the venerable neath the broad light of the lamp; nor could woman who had been the favorite attendant

Death had touched her lovingly,

of his mother, and who had, upon her mar-rosary. riage, followed her from her home, and ul- for there was almost a smile upon her lips; timately become his nurse. A shuddering and the hard lines which the world traces thrill passed through his veins, for he was upon the countenance had disappeared beawaiting her. She was accustomed each neath his gentle pressure. night, after his sister had retired, to prepare The count stood gloomily beside her bed, for both a draught of lemonade as their awaiting the arrival of the physician who night-beverage, and first leaving one with had been summoned. He trembled violenther young master, to carry the other to the ly, but he was surrounded by the voice of chamber of the countess. Her appearance wailing and the sight of tears; he had lost was therefore anticipated; and she remain- his only sister, his last relative. How, then, ed for an instant, as usual, in order to re- could he have remained unmoved? The phyceive the praise which her beloved nurse- sician came; he felt the small and rounded ling never failed to lavish upon her skill; wrists, but there was no pulsation: he but, for the first time, Elric objected to the bared the white and beautiful arm to the flavor of the draught, and requested her to shoulder, and applied the lancet, but the bring him a lemon that he might augment blood had ceased to circulate in the blue its acidity. The discomfited old woman veins. The man of science shook his head, obeyed, and having deposited her salver and extended his hand in sympathy to the upon the table, left the room. Elric start- anxious brother. The catastrophe, he said, ed up, grasped a mass of his dishevelled was subject of regret to him rather than hair in his hand with a violence which of surprise. The young gräfine had long threatened to rend it from the roots, uttered suffered from an affection of the heart. A one groan which seemed to tear asunder little sooner or a little later the blow must all the fibres of his heart, and then glared have fallen. It was a mere question of about him, rapidly but searchingly, ere he time. All human aid was useless. And so drew the fatal phial from his breast, and he departed from the house of mourning. slowly, gloatingly poured out the whole of the liquid into the porcelain cup which had been prepared for his sister. As he did so, a slight acrid scent diffused itself over the apartment, but almost instantly evaporated, and the death-draught remained as clear and limpid as before.

To-morrow!" murmured the wretched young man, as he watched the retiring form of the grey-haired attendant when she finally left the room; and then he once more buried his face in his hands, and fell into a state of torpor.

"To-morrow!" he repeated, as he at length rose, staggeringly, to seek his chamber. "Mina, beloved Mina, I have bought you at a fearful price!"

CHAPTER III.

The voice of lamentation was loud upon the morrow in that ancient house. The Countess Stephanie had ceased to exist. The aged nurse had drawn back the curtains of the window, that her mistress might, as usual, be awakened by the cheerful sunlight; but she was no longer conscious of its beams. She lay upon her bed, pale, placid, and unchanged, like one who had passed from the calm slumber of repose to the deep sleep of death. One hand pillowed her cheek, and the other still clasped her

The few individuals of Nienburg and its immediate neighborhood who were privileged to intrude at such a moment, crowded to the mansion to offer their condolences to the young graf, and to talk over the sudden and melancholy death of his sister; and meanwhile, Elric, unable to rest for an instant in the same place, wandered through the desolate apartments, tearless and silent, occasionally lifting the different articles which had belonged to Stephanie in his trembling hands, and looking intently upon them, as though he dreaded to behold the characters of his crime traced upon their surface.

The German, ceremonial of interment is complicated and minute, and all persons of high birth are expected to conform to it in every particular. Among the rites which precede burial is one which, trying as it cannot fail to prove to the principal actor, must, nevertheless, greatly tend to tranquillize the minds of the survivors. It is necessary that we should describe this.

For four-and-twenty hours the corpse remains beneath the roof where the death has taken place, and while there all the affecting offices necessary to its final burial are performed. This time elapsed, it is carried to the cemetery, and laid, in its windingsheet, upon a bed in the inner apartment of the low stone building to which, in our

description of the death-valley of Nienburg, we have already made allusion. This solitary erection consists only of two rooms; that in which the body is deposited is called the Hall of Resurrection, and contains no other furniture than the bed itself and a bell-rope, the end of which is placed in the hand of the corpse. This cord is attached to a bell which rings in the next room, and which is thence called the Chamber of the Bell. Thus, should it occur that the friends of an individual may have been deceived, and have mistaken lethargy for death, and that the patient should awake during the night (for the body must remain all night in this gloomy refuge), the slightest movement which he may make necessarily rings the bell, and he obtains instant help. It is customary for the nearest relative to keep this dreary watch; and from a beautiful sentiment, which must almost tend to reconcile the watcher to his ghostly task, he is fated to watch there alone, that it may be he who calls back the ebbing life, and that none may share in a joy so holy and so deep-a joy, moreover, so rare and so unhoped for!

what? With the dead, stretched there by his own hand-With his murdered sister! This was his companionship within; and without, graves, nothing but graves, sheeted corpses, and the yawning tomb which was awaiting his victim. The sweat rolled in large drops down the forehead of the young man. He had watched near the body of his mother in peace and prayer, for she had been taken from him, and he was innocent then, and full of hope; but now--now! He tottered to the window and looked out. The twilight was thickening, and the light came pale through the narrow leaded panes of the little casement. He glanced around the sepulchral chamber in which he was to pass the night. There was a small fire burning upon the open hearth at which he lighted his lamp, and a prayer-book lying upon the table, on which he vainly endea vored to concentrate his thoughts. At that moment he was beyond the reach of prayer! The strong man was bowed, body and spirit, beneath the pressure of his crime! Again and again he asked himself, with a pertinacity that bordered on delirium, what it was over which he watched? And again and again the question was answered in his own heart. Over his sister, his only surviving relative, murdered by his own hand. The murderer was watching beside his victim!

The long day, and the still longer night in which the Countess Stephanie lay dead beneath the roof she had so reverenced throughout her life, passed over; and all the pompous accessories which could be commanded in so obscure a neighborhood At intervals he strove against the horror were secured to do honor to her obsequies. by which he was oppressed; he endeavored The mournful train moved slowly onward to rally the pride of his sex and of his to the cemetery, where a grave had already strength. What could he fear? The dead been prepared for her beside her mother; are powerless over the living; and yet, and, passing near the spot where she was fiercer and sharper came the memory that finally to rest, entered the Hall of Resur- his crime had been gratuitous, for had he rection, and gently and carefully stretched not been told that the death which he had her upon the bed of gloom. The wildest of given must ere long have come? "A litthe mourners was the poor old nurse, who, tle sooner, or a little later," had said the with her grey hair streaming over her shoul-man of science. Oh, had he only waited, ders, and her dim eyes swollen with tears, promised, temporised; but all was now too knelt near the head of her mistress, and late! She lay there cold, pale, stark, withclasped her clay-cold hands. But it was the in a few paces of him, and tears of blood young count who was the centre of com- could not recall the dead! miseration. The last four-and-twenty hours It was the close of autumn, and as the had done the work of years upon him; a sun set, masses of lurid and sulphureous sullen, leaden tinge had spread over his clouds gathered upon the western horizon, skin, his voice was deep and hollow, and his but save an occasional sweep of wind which trembling hands could scarcely perform their moaned through the funereal trees, all reoffices. "No wonder!" ejaculated those mained still, buried in that ringing silence who looked upon him; "for years they which may be heard; and the moon, as yet had been every thing to each other." untouched by the rising vapors, gleamed on the narrow window of the cell, and cast upon the floor the quivering shadows of the trees beside it. But at length came midnight, the moon was veiled in clouds, and

At length the funeral train departed, for the sun was setting. Elric listened in horror to their retreating footsteps, for he felt that he was soon to be alone. Alone with