the poor Hessings. The doctor never got the whole story out of me, though he often returned to the charge concerning the pin and the hussar. I believe it was those inexplicable circumstances which made him withdraw from my society, and Frau Subert gave me to understand that she would prefer another lodger. The whole business was disagreeable. I changed my quarters, and in the following season my college too, having got my father’s leave to study at Gottingen—but that was not all. As my visions of the palace in Petersburg and the castle in Courland melted away, Caroline resumed her empire over my heart, but in answer to my returning homage, she sent me a brief note to request back her letters, and assure me that we were not suited to each other. She married the town clerk of Luneburg in the course of the following summer, and my heart did not break, but I’m a bachelor as you see, and have been a great enemy to princesses and all belonging to them ever since.
Years passed. My father died and left me his property. I had travelled in Europe, and Asia, met with some adventures, made many acquaintances, but never got news or explanation regarding my lost friends. At last I settled in the capital of Hanover for some time, and at a coffee house there, chanced to meet a French physician in considerable repute among the rich and idle inhabitants of that particularly dull town. He had been with his country’s army in the Russian campaign, escaped the frost by falling into the hands of the enemy, made himself professionally useful, and was detained in Russia for years. What reason he had for keeping out of the territories of the restored Bourbon I never learned; but he spoke German better than most of his countrymen ever can. He was solitary, and so was I; our acquaintance ripened rapidly, and in the course of it, I discovered that part of his Russian experience had been acquired in the service of the Princess Woriskow, to whom he had been handed over by one of her noble relations, who happened to be a general officer, as her Excellency’s physician. My friend had resided in the castle of my early dreams, knew Karlowitz well; and one evening when we were particularly confidential over some capital Moselle, I took courage to tell him my story in hopes of some light on the Hessings’ share of it. The doctor listened with a series of silent gesticulations, as if to give his feelings vent.
“Oh! you German goose,” said he, when I had finished; “Monsieur will excuse the familiarity of a friend. Did you not see that the Princess and her secretary were making an instrument of you to identify and secure those unfortunate young people? Listen; when I lived at her Excellency’s castle, in Courland, she had in her guardianship a boy and girl, whose parentage was kept a profound secret. Some said they were the last descendants of the Jagellons; some, that they were the grandchildren of the second Duke de Biren, which account was favoured by the fact that they bore his family name. All parties agreed in the statement that they were heirs to a duchy, though it could not be settled whether the rightful inheritance was Courland or Lithuania; and that the Russian Government had sound reasons for keeping fast hold of them. The Princess had got them into her keeping; why, I cannot tell; except that her family had got a large share of the ducal lands in both provinces, and she stood in high favour with the keeper of the imperial conscience, Madame Krudener. Wherever the Princess went, the boy and girl went with her. It was said, she never lost sight of them for twenty-four hours together. As became their descent, both were beautiful; but the boy was evidently imbecile, while the girl had fine intellects, and a remarkable bent to learning. Her Excellency, doubtless for some politic reason, did not think proper to notice this difference in her wards. She was in the habit of boasting that they received a superior education under her management, and for that purpose there was kept among her retinue a young German, named Henrich Von Eslar. I know not how he came into the service, but being a well-bred, handsome young man, with a good deal of scholarship, and some accomplishments, he acted as teacher to both boy and girl; for the Princess never would employ a governess, it being a maxim with her, that such women were always prying. Von Eslar was civil to me, though I could not speak German then; what I know of the language was picked up in Courland, where it is the aristocratic tongue. All I ever learned of his antecedents was, that he belonged to a reduced family, and had been brought up by an uncle, who was a Lutheran clergyman, somewhere in the north of Germany. At all events, the young gentleman seemed on the high road to fortune, if he had been wise enough to keep it. It was whispered that her Excellency had a more than commendable partiality for the instructor of her wards, but unluckily his fancy went another way. One morning, neither he nor Mademoiselle de Biren could be found; and though the Princess spared neither time nor money upon it, her search failed to discover the place of their retreat. One thing, however, was ascertained, though not for her consolation. In the register of the poorest church of Liebau, the marriage of the pair was duly recorded as having been celebrated three days after their flight; but, fortunately for himself, the clergyman who performed the ceremony was quietly sleeping in the churchyard, and the clerk had run away to Sweden, before that entry was discovered. Yet she made them out, my friend, through your little adventure in Brunswick. The stars were not propitious when they directed you to lodge with the young man’s relation, as I hold Frau Subert was; to mention your fellow lodgers before Karlowitz; and to receive that keen eyed visitor in the hussar’s uniform, determined to identify her prey. What will not a woman do for jealousy and revenge? Their mode of concealment was unique and clever, but neither you nor I will ever learn their fate, and that pin is paste,” said the doctor, twirling round the evidence of my folly in his fingers; to which I can add only that his verdict was confirmed by a jeweller next day, and his prediction has been fulfilled to the letter, for I have never since obtained trace or intelligence of The Steady Students.