illustrated edition," he said, with a
rather forced attempt at jesting. "See, it was this little person's
fault that I thought for a while it was really my calling to be a
useful citizen--chamberlain to his Highness--by and by master of the
hunt--court marshal--heaven knows what all. Is not that a face that
could persuade one of anything, and could turn a head that never sat
very firmly? And that is only a commonplace photograph, and three years
old; and besides, in these three years the wicked child has learned all
manner of witches' arts; and the eyes that here in the photograph look
so still and fixed--half curious, half timid, as if they were looking
at a theatre-curtain that would not go up--I can tell you, my dear boy,
they look into the world now with such a queenly confidence and dignity
that it fairly--but that is no part of our present talk. And at that
time, when the misfortune happened and I lost my heart to the child,
the little thing was hardly more than a schoolgirl, just sixteen years
old; and shy, silent and unformed as a young bird. We had known each
other since we were children--she is some sort of a cousin, seventeen
times removed--just as all good families with us are related in some
way. I had not the least idea, however, of visiting her, until her
uncle, with whom she lived--her parents died when she was very
young--until this jovial gentleman came to make me a visit of
condolence. Of course I had to return it, and it was on this occasion
that I first saw the slender, pale, large-eyed child, with her
exquisite, tight-shut red lips and her ravishing, tiny little ears.

"Soon afterward I went away again, and only after a year had
passed--after the infernal examination that I would not shirk, in spite
of my freedom, lest it should seem as though I were afraid of it--only
then, when she was seventeen years old, did I see her again. While I
was away, a recollection of her had come back to me from time to time;
suddenly, in the midst of altogether different things, I had seen
something flitting before me that resembled nothing but her slight and
somewhat spare figure, about which there was one trait that always
seemed to me especially charming--that though she was perhaps not quite
tall enough, her little form was always so haughty and erect and so
delicately and perfectly balanced on its slender pedestal. Sometimes,
too, her eyes met me in a fairly ghost-like fashion, when I was among
my comrades or al