wn a volume, when the
interjectional fit waxed violent, flip the pages, affecting a perplexity
he would assuredly have been struck by had he perused them, and read, as
he did once,--'Italy, the land of the sun! and she is to be hurried away
there, and we are left to groan. The conspiracy is infamous! One of the
Family takes it upon himself to murder us! and she is to be hurried
out of hearing! And so we are to have the blood of the Roys spilt for
nothing?--no!' and he shut up the book with a report, and bounded to my
side to beg pardon of me. From his particular abuse of the margravine,
the iteration of certain phrases, which he uttered to denounce and defy
them, I gathered that an interview had passed between the two, and
that she had notified a blockade against all letters addressed to the
princess. He half admitted having rushed to the palace on his road to
me.

'But, Richie,' said he, pressing me again to write the moving line, 'a
letter with a broad black border addressed by me might pass.' He looked
mournfully astute. 'The margravine might say to herself, "Here's Doctor
Death in full diploma come to cure the wench of her infatuation." I am
but quoting the coarse old woman, Richie; confusion on her and me! for
I like her. It might pass in my handwriting, with a smudge for paternal
grief--it might. "To Her Serene Highness the Margravine of Rippau,
etc., etc., etc., in trust for the Most Exalted the Princess of
Eppenwelzen-Sarkeld." I transpose or omit a title or so. "Aha!" says
she, "there's verwirrung in Roy's poor head, poor fellow; the boy has
sunk to a certainty. Here (to the princess), it seems, my dear, this
is for you. Pray do not communicate the contents for a day or so, or a
month."'

His imitation of the margravine was the pleasantest thing I heard from
him. The princess's maid and confidante, he regretted to state, was
incorruptible, which I knew. That line of Ottilia's writing, 'Violets
are over,' read by me in view of the root-mountain of the Royal House of
Princes, scoffed at me insufferably whenever my father showed me these
openings of his mind, until I was dragged down to think almost that
I had not loved the woman and noble soul, but only the glorified
princess--the carved gilt frame instead of the divine portrait! a
shameful acrid suspicion, ransacking my conscience with the thrusting in
of a foul torch here and there.

For why had I shunned him of late? How was it that he tortured me now?
Did