like the pictures of the saints in Passion-week, hanging behind a
veil.

And as for her brother, the madcap Roquairol, who in his thirteenth year
had shot at himself with suicidal intent because the little Countess
Linda de Romeiro, Albano's father's ward, had turned her back upon him,
could our hero's admiration be withheld from a youth of his own age who
already possessed all the accomplishments and had tasted all the
passions?

When Albano entered Pestitz, eager that his dreams of love and
friendship should be realised, the aged Prince of Hohenfliess had just
departed this life, and Liana, intimate friend of the Princess Julienne,
daughter of the dead prince, was smitten with temporary blindness, due
to emotion and consequent headache. Albano first beheld her in the
garden of her father, the minister, standing in the glimmer of the moon.
The blest youth saw irradiated the young, open, still Mary's-brow, and
the delicate proportions, which, like the white attire, seemed to exalt
the form. Thou too fortunate man!--to whom the only visible goddess,
Beauty, appears so suddenly, in her omnipotence!

Ah, why must a deep, cold cloud steal through this pure and lofty
heaven?

The inauguration of the new prince was held--of the enfeebled Prince
Luigi--upon whose expected speedy decease the neighbouring princely
house of Haarkaar founded its hopes of acquiring the dominions of
Hohenfliess. It was on the night of an inauguration ball that Albano,
having poured out his heart to Roquairol in a letter, met his
long-hoped-for friend, and sealed their affections by declaring that he
would never wed Linda de Romeiro, whom it was thought Count Gaspard had
designed for his son's bride, and for whom Roquairol's youthful passion
had not been extinguished.

When Liana recovered her sight, she was sent to Bluemenbuhl for
restoration of health--to the home of Albano's foster-father, the
provincial-director Wehrfritz. Thither often came Albano; thither also
came Roquairol, to bask in the wondering admiration that Rabette,
Albano's foster-sister, bestowed on him with all the fervour of her
innocent rural mind. Albano's dream was fulfilled; he loved Liana in
realty as he had loved her in imagination. Roquairol thought he loved
Rabette; in truth, her simplicity was to this experienced conqueror of
feminine hearts but a new and, for the moment, overmastering sensation.

On a glorious evening Albano and Liana stood on a sloping
mountain-