The dog shall hang from the highest
battlement of the castle!"

"May it not have been a free gift, sir count?" suggested the hideous
hag.

"A free gift! What mean you? A love token? Ha! dare you insinuate? And
yet her blood is----"

"Hush! walls have sometimes ears," said the old woman, looking
cautiously around. "The gypsy child you picked up in the forest is now
almost a man; your daughter is a woman. The page is beautiful; they
have been thrown much together. Alvina is lonely, romantic----"

"Enough, enough!" said the count, stamping his foot. "I will watch
him. If your suspicions be correct----" He paused, and added between
his clinched teeth, "I shall know how to punish the daring of the dog.
Away!"

The old woman hobbled away, rubbing her skinny hands together, and
chuckling at the prospect of having her hatred of the young countess
and the page, both of whom had excited her malevolence, speedily
gratified.

Count Willnitz was on the eve of a journey to Paris with his daughter.
They were to start in a day or two. This circumstance brought on the
adventure we shall speedily relate.

Between Alexis, the beautiful page whom the late countess had found
and fancied among a wandering Bohemian horde, and the high-born
daughter of the feudal house, an attachment had sprung up, nurtured
by the isolation in which they lived, and the romantic character and
youth of the parties. About to be separated from his mistress for a
long time, the page had implored her to grant him an interview, and
the lovers met in an apartment joining the suite of rooms appropriated
to the countess, and where they were little likely to be intruded
upon. In the innocence of their hearts, they had not dreamed that
their looks and movements had been watched, and they gave themselves
up to the happiness of unrestrained converse. But at the moment when
the joy of Alexis seemed purest and brightest, the gathering thunder
cloud was overhanging him. At the moment when, sealing his pledge of
eternal fidelity and memory in absence, he tremblingly printed a first
and holy kiss upon the blushing cheek of Alvina, an iron hand was laid
upon his shoulder, and, torn ruthlessly from the spot, he was dashed
against the wall, while a terrible voice exclaimed,--

"Dog, you shall reckon with me for this!"

Alvina threw herself at her father's feet.

"Pardon--pardon for Alexis, father! I alone am to blame."

"Rise! rise!" thundered the count. "Art thou no