when I speak so softly?"

"I hear you, Sir Count."

"Sir Count!" repeated he, sighing. "You retract your word, then? You
thrust me again into the ranks of your court cavaliers and counts? You
have no longer a word of welcome for the poor, pitiable man who worships
you, who is blessed if he can only look at you, only hear the tones of
your sweet voice, and who has been longing for this with desire and
painful rapture for three long months? Not one word of welcome for me?"

"I welcome you--welcome you with my whole heart! Have you only been away
three months? Were they not three years?"

"Seems it so to you, my adored mistress? I believe it was three hundred
years--three eternities. And yet these eternities have not altered your
angelic face. It is still ever radiant in its heavenly, rosy beauty, and
not a feature betrays that you have suffered on my account, that you have
longed for me."

"Then my face belies me, for I have longed for you; therefore the months
lengthened into years, and it seems to me as if I have become a very old,
sedate person since I last saw you."

"Oh, dearest, how I long for one moment of solitary communing with you,
when I can kneel at your feet, cover your hands with kisses, and tell you
how inexpressibly I love you! Be not cruel, Louise, in this hour of
reunion. Tell me that you, too, long for such a moment--that you will
grant it to me."

"And if I should say so, how would it help us? You know well that I am
watched day and night. My mother never lets me leave her side, and our
governess watches over me still, just as if I were a child that could not
walk a step without an attendant, nor write a line without her reading it."

"Ah, you dear, sweet angel! if you only loved me half as ardently as I
love you, your pretty, prudent little head would already have devised some
means whereby poor John Adolphus would not have to plead in vain for one
blissful moment passed alone with you."

"I love you, John Adolphus, but oh, I dare not love you! The wrath of my
mother would be boundless if she even suspected it."

"She need not suspect it beforehand, nor hear anything about it before we
are certain of your father's gracious consent."

"You esteem that possible? You believe that my father will ever consent
for me--"

"For you to condescend to become my wife? I hope so--hope that the
Emperor's favor exalts me a little, so that the chasm which separates us
is not too great for you to cross,