m. The tone in which all this
was spoken had the moving accents of sincerity, and the Count was all
the more affected by it that, having turned his eyes away from her
repulsive face, he had fixed them upon a marvellously charming and
beautiful creature who was with her. The Baroness finished her speech.
The Count did not seem to be aware that she had done so. He remained
silent. She begged him to pardon--and attribute to her embarrassment at
being where she was--her having neglected to explain that her companion
was her daughter Aurelia. On this the Count found words, and blushing
up to the eyes implored the Baroness, with the agitation of a young man
overpowered by love, to let him atone in some degree for his lather's
shortcomings--the result of misunderstandings--and to favour him by
paying him a long visit. In warmly enforcing this request he took her
hand. But the words and the breath died away on his lips and his blood
ran cold. For he felt his hand grasped as if in a vice by fingers cold
and stiff as death, and the tall bony form of the Baroness, who was
staring at him with eyes evidently deprived of the faculty of sight,
seemed to him in its gay many tinted attire like some bedizened corpse.

"Oh, good heavens! how unfortunate just at this moment," Aurelia cried
out, and went on to lament in a gentle heart-penetrating voice that her
mother was now and then suddenly seized by a tetanic spasm, but that it
generally passed off very quickly without its being necessary to take
any measures with regard to it.

Hyppolitus disengaged himself with some difficulty from the Baroness,
and all the glowing life of sweetest love delight came back to him as
he took Aurelia's hand and pressed it warmly to his lips. Although he
had almost come to man's estate it was the first time that he felt the
full force of passion, so that it was impossible for him to hide what
he felt, and the manner in which Aurelia received his avowal in a
noble, simple, child-like delight, kindled the fairest of hopes within
him. The Baroness recovered in a few minutes, and, seemingly quite
unaware of what had been happening, expressed her gratitude to the
Count for his invitation to pay a visit of some duration at the Castle,
saying she would be but too happy to forget the injustice with which
his father had treated her.

Thus the Count's household arrangements and domestic position were
completely changed, and he could not but believe that some speci