desire.' She was sure the idea must have been suggested to him by some association unfitting his rank and position, and she was, as we shall see, not far wrong in her surmises.

There followed some very disagreeable days at Castle Eichhof, and the result was that Walter, with a heavy heart, resolved to conform to his parents' wishes, and at least to attempt the study of law. He could not see how to act otherwise at present. He must, he thought, furnish this proof of his willingness to obey, but in secret he did not relinquish the hope of one day carrying out his own plans. The Count was seriously out of sorts for a few days, but upon Walter's submission his brow cleared again, and his thoughts turned from this annoying intermezzo to the approaching Easter holidays, when he expected his two other sons at Castle Eichhof, which should once more be, as he expressed it, "the headquarters of youthful fun and frolic."

"The boys must be entertained when they come home," was his watchword. The Countess had the ball-room newly decorated, and made out lists for dinner- and dancing-parties. Walter was a great deal alone in the library writing letters, and took many a lonely ride. He rode once to Rollin to invite Adela Hohenstein to ride with him, but the Baron declared that the physician had forbidden so much horseback exercise, and Adela's manner towards him was so strangely altered that, instead of confiding his grief to her as he had intended to do, he soon rode home again.

"Adela is playing the young lady, I see,--she really coquetted with me to-day," he said to himself; "but I am no longer in the mood to be entertained by her upon the subject of the fashion in which her hair is dressed. If she will no longer be my good comrade, she may let it alone. These young girls are very little good after all."

Still, oddly enough, he thought oftener than usual of Adela that day, and when he was occupied with the most serious plans for the future her fair curly head would intrude upon his thoughts in a most unnecessary and uncalled-for manner. "She certainly has grown extremely pretty of late,--there is no doubt of that," he thought.

CHAPTER III.

HIDDEN SPRINGS.

Thus Easter came 'slowly up this way,' and with the holidays the 'sons' from Berlin came to Eichhof and to Rollin.

No finer sight was to be seen than the handsome Count Eichhof and his wife, whose rather faded face and figure retained the traces of former beauty, surrounded by their three sons, the two elder models of manly strength and grace, while a kind of vague nimbus of future distinction hovered around Walter, for which, as the reader knows, his mother was far more responsible than himself. When her high-handed lord had yielded a reluctant consent that her youngest boy should be moulded according to his mother's desire, her imagination instantly perceived in him the future diplomat,--the one of her children born to act a part in the world's history. He was in her eyes a most remarkable child, and, since he really was a very docile, amiable boy, and in consideration of the fact that one of his uncles was an ambassador and another a lord of the treasury, there were found family friends on all sides ready, whenever Walter was spoken of, to whisper significantly, "A wonderful young fellow! He has a brilliant career before him!"

To complete the charming family picture another figure was now added, in the person of Bernhard's lovely betrothed. She was the daughter of a Herr von Rosen, whose estates were in the neighbourhood of Eichhof. Bernhard and she had been boy and girl lovers. Bernhard, indeed, knew something of society and of other women, but Therese--or Thea, as she was called--knew absolutely nothing of the outside world. Without her being in the least aware of it, the love of the child had grown into the pure devotion of the maiden. It had seemed the most natural thing in the world to be betrothed to Bernhard,--that he should henceforth be the centre around which every thought and hope of her heart should cling, and that he should typify to her all that she could conceive of beauty and excellence.

And now he was at home on leave. She saw him daily, and in May they were to be married.

"Thea is 'fearfully happy,'" said her younger sister Alma, Adela's bosom friend; and the servants at Eichhof, who were wont to consider their verdict as important in such cases, as well as all the neighbouring gentry, rung the changes upon the same theme.

The neighbours were soon offered a special opportunity for admiring and discussing the 'charming Eichhofs,' since very early in the Easter holidays they were bidden to a grand dinner at the castle. The state apartments were thrown open, and worthy representatives of the noblest of the county families--the Hohensteins, the Rosens, the Lindenstadts, and many others--gladly accepted this first invitation issued after the return home of the soldier sons.

And yet the betrothed pair were not on this occasion the cynosure of every eye, the theme of every tongue, as might have been expected. These guests were all either distantly related to one another or intimate from the association of years. One of them, however, appeared to-day for the first time in this exclusive circle, exciting universal attention and remark. This was the young wife of Marzell Wronsky, who, himself a very German of the Germans, had lately, by marrying a distant Polish cousin, revived in the minds of all the memory of his Polish ancestry.

"What do you think of young Madame Wronsky?" was a question often whispered at this dinner behind a lady's fan or in the recess of some window. The answer would consist either of a shrug of the shoulders and an elevation of the eyebrows, signifying 'not much,' or in the whispered reply, "Very elegant, yes, undeniably elegant, but not at all handsome; scarcely good-looking. Why, she has red hair and green eyes, and then she is so very pale."

But when Madame Wronsky came to be discussed after dinner in the smoking-room over a bowl of punch,--her husband having rejoined the ladies,--the opinions expressed concerning her were rather different.

"A striking creature, the Wronsky," was heard from Lieutenant Hohenstein,--"decided air of race; she would create a furor in Berlin."

"A perfect Undine," murmured the Assessor von Schönburg; "coy, cold, and immovable at first, but as soon as she is interested, all fire and passion,--indescribably attractive."

"Schönburg is off on his old romantic track," laughed Lieutenant von Z. "I rather think your fair Undine is quite capable of giving an eager admirer a bath of very cold water; there is something absolutely freezing in her eye at times, and she has a way of throwing back her head that reminds one of an obstinate horse."

"A profane simile!" the Assessor declared, with a shrug, swallowing his irritation in a glass of punch.

"In what capital taste the Wronsky was dressed!" came from the other side of the table. "Everything about her is so chic. She's a great acquisition to the neighbourhood."

"Still, she is not regularly beautiful," said Lothar Eichhof.

Hohenstein looked at him with his eyes half closed, after his listless manner. "You are either in love with her, or she has treated you badly," he said, in a low tone. "I tell you that if the Wronskys go to Berlin next year, as Marzell says they think of doing, that woman will create a perfect furor. Remember this."

Meanwhile, the object