ion and worship of whom he could obtain forgiveness of all
his sins and errors. It affected him to think that Elise was praying
for him while he, perhaps, forgot her in the whirlpool of pleasure;
that she believed in him so devotedly and truly, that she looked up to
him so lovingly and humbly--to him who was so far her inferior. And in
the midst of his wild life of pleasure he felt the need of some saint
to intercede for forgiveness for him. All these new and unaccustomed
feelings only enchained him the more closely, and made him consider
the possession of her as the most desirable and only worthy object of
his life.

She must be his; he was determined to wear this brilliant diamond,
the only one he had ever found genuine and without flaw, as his
most costly possession; to become, in spite of all difficulties and
impossibilities, unmindful of his betrothed bride and his solemn vows,
the husband of this beautiful German maiden, who had given herself to
him heart and soul.

In proportion to the difficulties that opposed such a union, increased
his fierce determination to overcome them. He was betrothed, and the
Empress Elizabeth herself had blessed the betrothal. He could
not, therefore, retract his vows without exciting the anger of his
mistress, and history had more than one example to show how violent
and annihilating this anger could be. In like wise, Elise dared not
hope ever to obtain the consent of her father to her union with a man
who was the enemy of her country. She was obliged to conceal this love
with anxious care from his eyes, if she did not wish to expose herself
to the danger of being separated from her lover forever. She knew that
her father, in every thing else uniformly kind and yielding toward
her, was on this one subject implacable, and that no tears, no
pleading, were capable of moving the firm and energetic will of the
ardent patriot.

Both were obliged, therefore, to preserve their love a secret, and in
this concealment lay for Feodor a new charm which bound him to her,
while it estranged Elise's heart still more from her father, and
chained it in unbounded devotion to her lover.

In the mean while the time arrived for Feodor to leave Berlin with
General Sievers. He swore eternal love and fidelity to Elise, and she
vowed to him cheerfully never to become the wife of another, but in
patience and trust to await his return, and to hope for the end of the
war and the coming of peace, which would