hed,' said the governor to Arwed, 'and it will
soon be time to view the spectacle for which you have given yourself
the trouble to come here. Seek Christine. We shall set out
immediately.'

Arwed searched the house, garden, and the whole of the little town,
without being able to find her. As he was returning in the ill humor
naturally consequent upon his want of success, he was met by the
sheriff's little daughter.

'Perhaps you can tell me, my child,' he asked, 'where I can find the
governor's daughter?'

The little thing gave him an arch look and placed her finger on her
nose. 'That indeed can I,' answered she; 'but I know not whether I may
venture to do so.'

'I will answer for it that you may,' Arwed jestingly assured her. 'I am
a messenger from her father--'

'And possibly for that reason I may not. Fathers must not be allowed to
know every thing. The countess told me that, should a handsome slender
man in a green hunting dress ask for her, I might direct him where she
was. Now you are indeed handsome and slender, but the green dress is
wanting.'

'Who knows if she will be able to see the green coat to-day,' answered
Arwed significantly. 'Lead me to her. Perhaps she will be willing to
receive, for once, a blue coat instead of the green.'

'Well, at your own risk!' cried the child, leading him by some deserted
passages through the house and garden into the open fields, where the
waters of a meandering stream glistened among the trees in the evening
sun.

'She is there behind that thicket of alder bushes upon the border of
the stream!' whispered the child. 'Good success to you, sir officer!'
and she ran back to the house.

'Even at the north pole,' said Arwed, proceeding forward, 'the sex
indulge in amorous intrigues, and promote those of others when they
have none of their own.' He came to the bushes, and was not a little
astonished when, instead of Christine, he beheld a Finnish peasant
girl, who sat angling on the bank with her back towards him. But the
disguise was soon betrayed by the beauteous golden locks of the girl,
and the deep reverie into which she had fallen,--and he silently
approached through the bushes, that he might surprise his fair cousin.

The latter discovered by the slight movements of the foliage that some
one was approaching; but, pretending not to have remarked it, she sang
in her sweetest tones a Finnish song, in keeping with her assumed
character. The words were as follows: