h
all its men on the carpet. "The game is over--you have given me check,
and mated me!" And in a moment, as if ashamed of the influence
exercised over him by so very unwarlike an individual as a little girl
of eighteen, he hurried from the room, stumbling over his enormous
sword, which got, somehow or other, between his legs, and cursing his
awkwardness and the absurd excess of admiration which caused it.

"That man will surely never come here again," said Christina to her
father, as he entered the room an hour after the incidents of the
chess-board; for the obsequious minister had followed Ericson in his
rapid retreat, and now returned radiant with joy, as if his guest had
been the most fascinating of men.

"Not come here again!" chuckled the father. "That's all you know about
it. He is dying with impatience to return, and is angry with himself
for having wasted the two precious hours of your society in the way he
did. He never had two such happy hours in his life."

"Happy! is that what he calls happiness?" answered Christina, opening
her eyes in amazement. "I don't know what his notions may be--but
mine----oh, father!" she cried, emboldened by the smile she saw on the
old man's countenance, "you are only trying me; say you are only
proving my constancy, by persuading me that such a being as that has
any wish to please me. He is more in love with Alexander the Great
than with me; and he is quite right, for he has a far better chance of
a return."

"An enthusiasm excusable, my dear, in a young warrior of twenty years
of age, whose savage ambition it will be your delightful task to tame.
He is in a terrible state of agitation--a most flattering thing, let
me tell you, to a young gipsy like you--and you must humour him a
little, and not break out quite so fiercely, you minx; and yet you
managed very well, too. A fine fellow, Ericson, though a little wild;
rich, powerful, nobly born--what can you wish for better?"

"My cousin," answered Christina, with a bluntness that astonished the
advocate of Ericson's claims; "my cousin Adolphus, and no other. He is
braver than this savage; and as to nobility, he is as nobly born as my
own right honourable papa, and that is high enough for me."

"Go, go," said the courtier, a little puzzled by the openness of his
daughter's confession, and kissing her forehead at the same time; "go
to bed, my girl, and pray for your father's advancement."

Christina, like a dutiful child, pray