oity, toity! Why thou dost talk just as they do in those silly
romances. I wager thy head is full of them. Thou hast had bad
teachers, child, to permit thee to fill thy poor little brain with
such trash instead of useful knowledge. Or is it," said he, fixing his
gray eyes searchingly upon her, "or is it that thou hast met some
sighing Adonis in the woods? Ha! thou dost blush--have a care, child.
There, thou needest not tremble, I will not seek to know thy secret,
if secret thou hast. This much, however, know for a certainty, that
Prince Ferdinand is destined to be thy--"

"Dearest uncle!" exclaimed the little lady, her beautiful eyes filling
with tears, "thou shalt know all--all I have to tell, if thou wilt but
deliver me from this--"

"Have done with this folly, Lady Isoleth," and his cold gray eyes
sternly regarded her. "It was thy dead father's will that thou
shouldst marry thy cousin, Prince Ferdinand of Bernstorf; and thy
father's will must and shall be obeyed."

"'Folly!' 'Lady Isoleth!' 'must and shall!' He never before now spoke
one unkind word to me." And the weeping Isoleth went with a breaking
heart and shut herself in her own room, alone, and locking herself in,
she gave unrestrained vent to her passionate grief.

CHAPTER VI.

THE LAST APPEAL.

"I will seek _him_--yes, _he_ will not refuse my prayer. I will tell
him I hate him. He will be only too glad to release me when he knows
the depth of hatred I bear him. I will go this moment, for soon will
all my gay cousins be here, and then will be the horrid betrothal
ceremony--but I will not think of that--"

"Ha! my shy, beautiful cousin, Lady Isoleth!" Ferdinand was in the
library, amusing himself with books and prints. "See here, beautiful
cousin, I have found a book of rare merit, and beautifully
illuminated. I suppose, though," continued he with a quizzical look,
"that all the books here and their manifold contents are familiar to
thy bright eyes--is it not so?"

"Not exactly _all_," replied Isoleth, smiling in spite of her sorrow,
as she glanced at the endless rows of huge leather-bound tomes, that
had not even had the cobwebs dusted from them for a century at least.

"Wilt thou not deign to look over this precious book with me, most
beauteous lady? Thy sharp wit may help my slow faculties to comprehend
its quaint poetry, and thy glorious eyes will love its finely executed
prints."

"I came not to disturb thy meditations," replied she, shrink