o not hope with me, the more experienced friend, that
this foolhardy fellow, misguided by ardent love, with the aid of the
saints to whom he is beginning to turn, may be converted to greater
caution and praiseworthy virtue? Whether, in your great charity--which I
have heard so highly praised--you would be capable"--Here he paused and,
lowering his voice to a whisper, added:

"Do me the favour to lend your ear--what a well-formed little thing it
is!--a short time longer, to confide to the elderly man who feels a
father's affection for you whether you would be wholly reluctant to
attempt the reformation of the daring evil-doer yourself were he to
offer, not only his heart, but the little ring with--I will guarantee
it--his honourable, knightly hand?"

"Oh, your Majesty!" cried Eva, gazing at the gracious sovereign with an
expression of such imploring entreaty in her large, tearful blue eyes
that, as if regretting his hasty question, he added soothingly:

"Well, well, we will reach the goal, I think, at a slower pace. Such a
confession will probably flow more easily from the lips when sought by
the person for whom it means happiness or despair, than when a
stranger--even one as old and friendly as I--seeks to draw it from a
modest maiden."

Here he paused; he had just recognised Lady Wendula Schorlin. Waving his
hand to her in joyous greeting, he ordered a page to conduct her to him
and, again turning to Eva, said: "Look yonder, my beautiful child: there
is someone in whom you would confide more willingly than in me. I think
Sir Heinz's mother, who is worthy of all reverence and love--"

Here surprise and joy forced from Eva's lips the question, "His mother?"
and there was such amazement in the tone that, as the Lady Wendula,
bowing low, approached the Emperor, after exchanging the first greetings
which pass between old friends who have been long separated, he asked how
it happened that though Eva seemed to have already met the matron, she
heard with such surprise that she was the mother of his brave favourite.

Lady Wendula then confessed the name she had given herself, that she
might study the young girl without being known; and again that peculiar
smile flitted across the Emperor Rudolph's beardless face, and lingered
there, as he asked the widow of his dead companion in arms whether, after
such an examination, she believed she had found the right wife for her
son; and she replied that a long life would not give he