s his paternal tenderness.

This formal etiquette causes me inconceivable torment! Ah! if honors are
to cost me so dear, I would a thousand times prefer to be only a simple
noble.

The first dinner I ate with the family was ceremonious and cold. My
mother was uneasy and ready to apologize for offering me the ordinary
fare of the castle, and my father whispered in my ear:

'I might have offered you a bottle of wine, drawn from the tun of Miss
Frances; it would have been very pleasant for me to have drunk it at our
first dinner, but custom requires that the father should drink the first
glass, and the husband the second; otherwise it would be a bad omen....
Will that day ever come?' he added, sighing.

I could not restrain my tears, and could neither speak nor eat; my
mother looked at me with the most tender compassion. Every moment here
brings me some new sorrow, and the bonmots of our little Matthias have
lost all power to divert me. My father makes signs to him with his eyes
that he may invent something witty, but it is all lost upon me. Music to
a suffering body is but an importunate noise; and sallies of wit to a
despairing soul have lost their savor.

Our little Matthias is inconceivably acute; he divines all. He knows my
position, I am quite sure. He took advantage yesterday of a moment when
I was quite alone to come into my room, and with an air half sad, half
jesting, he knelt down before me and drew from his pocket a little
bouquet of dried flowers tied with a white ribbon and fastened by a gold
pin.... I could not at first tell what he meant, but soon the bouquet I
had worn at Barbara's wedding flashed across my memory. He gave me the
flowers, saying: 'I am sometimes a prophet,' and, still on his knees,
went toward the door. I ran after him; I remembered all, and with the
remembrance came a crowd of feelings, at once sweet and bitter. This
bouquet was the same I had given Matthias on Barbara's wedding day....

I took a rich diamond pin from my dress, and fastened it at the
buttonhole of Matthias's coat. Neither he nor I spoke a single word, but
I am sure that while each wondered inwardly at the strange fulfilment of
the prophecy, each was still more surprised that it had realized none of
our hopes.

Just as I was writing these lines, my mother entered my room. Her
kindness is incomparable; she brought me such a quantity of stuffs, of
jewels and blondes, that she could scarcely carry them. She laid them o