added:–“I expect you to-morrow at sunrise;” and before he could answer, she had darted away. Once she looked back, but it was to wave her hand in token that he should depart. Ernest lingered for a moment, and then hurried back to the hidden passage; he carefully effaced all traces of his progress–and drew the ivy after him when he entered the arched door, that he barred; and then hurriedly sought his own chamber, which he left no more that night. This was an act of too frequent occurrence, on his part, to excite the least surprise; and the supposed student was left undisturbed,–for, for him there was as little study as rest. That sweet face floated before his eyes, that low melodious voice haunted his ear–and the name of Minna lingered upon his lip. “Now,” thought he, “I understand the cause of my uncle’s gloom and abstraction; no marvel that he has no heart for gaiety with such a crime pressing upon it. I faintly remember hearing that his brother had fallen in some campaign that they fought together;–doubtless, with his last breath he commended his orphan girl to one bound by blood to protect her. How has that dying trust been violated; how has that child been oppressed! Made a prisoner–debarred all the social enjoyments of her age–deprived of rank and birthright, immured in solitude and ignorance. Great God! can such cruelty exist among the creatures thou has made? but retribution, sooner or later, overtakes the guilty. Poor Pauline! how will her gentle and affectionate nature be grieved to hear this thing of the father she idolises; it must be kept from her. Wealth, what a subtle tempter thou art! Even my uncle–the man I deemed so noble, so generous, so full of high feeling, and knightly qualities; even he has for thy sake played traitor to the dead, and broken every sacred tie of duty and of affection! I will think no more of it.” This resolve was easily executed; for the image of Minna excluded every other thought. Her beauty, her grace, her childishness had captivated Ernest’s imagination; fate, too, had set her stamp upon the fiery passion to which he utterly abandoned himself. “How strangely,” murmured he to himself, as, thrown in the deep window-seat, he gazed out upon the silent night–“are the links knitted together, which time unravels! The picture my boyhood discovered, and which so haunted my youth, has it not now fulfilled its mission? The chance likeness has led to the predestined result. I feel it,–Minna has been predestined to be my bride. Fate, in filling my heart with her face, from the earliest years kept it free from all those passing fancies which would have detracted from the intense devotion of my present love. How wonderfully have we met! Minna–sweet Minna, life owes you much happiness; will it not be my delicious task to pay the debt?”
The night passed in one long, but happy reverie; and the light sleep into which Ernest fell at last was soon broken by the anxiety, which visited even his dreams, to catch the first crimson break of morning. He started from his bed–and the dark clouds in the east were beginning to redden; he hurried to the deserted suite of rooms–down the winding staircase, and in a few moments found himself again in the little garden. Cautiously he entered the vine-covered alley, and paused for a moment amid the thick shelter of the laurels; with a glance he drank in the beauty of the scene; the feeling of the painter and the poet–and Ernest had the imagination of both overpowered, during an instant, the feeling of the lover. Huge bodies of vapour–a storm in each–
