send the nurse away, I hear;--the child would not take to
her at all?'--'No, Sir, he wouldn't.'

"'It will be hard to find another one to suit, in that little hole of a
place. Do you think you could undertake to bring up the child yourself
by hand, with milk and water, as they do in France? You are a person I
can depend upon--I had rather leave the child to you, than to twenty
wet-nurses.'

"I burst out crying, and took my master's hand and kissed it; for when
he pleased, he had a way with him, and a voice, that could turn the
heart of his bitterest enemies. 'It is well;' he said, and drew away
his hand: 'I shall be some time away; you will write to me twice a year
about the boy, and I shall give orders that no one shall interfere with
you.' That same day he left the castle, and for many a long year we saw
no more of him.

"I will not weary you, Sir, by telling everything--how my little master
grew up to be a great boy;--although I remember it all as if it were
only yesterday;--and many's the lonesome hour I spend thinking over the
past, from the first tooth he cut, to the first bird he shot with his
little gun. And when I watched him playing in the court with the dogs,
or looked after him when he rode out on the bailiff's horse, every
muscle as firm and supple as a steel spring, and then that sweet face
of his, and that dear little voice--I used to wonder at his father, who
could go wandering about in foreign parts, rather than see his child
grow up. To be sure, the boy did not take after him at all, except in
his love for horses, and field sports.--For the rest, he was just his
mother over again, both in face and temper. And so, when his father
came and saw him at ten years old, he frowned, and looked as coldly on
him as on a stranger. At night my darling asked me: 'Is Papa always so
grave-looking, Flor?' And of course, I could not tell him how it was.

"However, by-and-by, things began to mend. The Count came every autumn
for the shooting season, and grew quite paternal with our boy;--kind or
affectionate he never was. I cannot call to mind that he ever kissed
him, or even so much as stroked his cheek.

"But he gave him, on his thirteenth birthday, a small dun pony, with a
bushy mane like a thick clothes-brush, and a pretty saddle; and then
Count Ernest was taken to ride out with his papa, away through the
forests, for whole days, and often to pay visits in the neighbourhood,
where the great folks were always p