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I was mistaken. In two or three days he returned, exhibiting less self-command than I had been led to anticipate. The fair lady, too, I took occasion to remind of this terrible will, in hopes, since he would not go, that she would have had the wisdom to have taken her departure. No such thing; neither party would move a jot I might as well have bestowed my counsel upon the two stone figures on the great gateway. And heartily sorry, and a little angry, I resolved to let matters take their own course.

Several weeks passed on, when one morning she came to me in the sweetest confusion, the loveliest mixture of bashfulness and joy.

“He loves me!” she said; “he has told me that he loves me!”

“Well?”

“And I have referred him to you. That clause—-“

“He already knows it.” And then I told her, word for word, what had passed.

“He knows of that clause, and he still wishes to marry me! He loves me for myself! Loves me, knowing me to be a beggar! It is true, pure, disinterested affection!”

“Beyond all doubt it is. And if you could live upon true love—-“

“Oh, but where that exists, and youth, and health, and strength, and education, may we not be well content to try to earn a living together? think of the happiness comprised in that word! I could give lessons;–I am sure that I could. I would teach music, and drawing, and dancing–anything for him! or we could keep a school here at Upton–anywhere with him!”

“And I am to tell him this?”

“Not the words!” replied she, blushing like a rose at her own earnestness; “not those words!”

Of course, it was not very long before M. le Comte made his appearance.

“God bless her, noble, generous creature!” cried he, when I had fulfilled my commission. “God for ever bless her!”

“And you intend, then, to take her at her word, and set up school together?” exclaimed I, a little provoked at his unscrupulous acceptance of her proffered sacrifice. “You really intend to keep a lady’s boarding-school here at the Court?”

“I intend to take her at her word, most certainly,” replied he, very composedly; “but I should like to know, my good friend, what has put it into her head, and into yours, that if Helen marries me she must needs earn her own living? Suppose I should tell you,” continued he, smiling, “that my father, one of the richest of the Polish nobility, was a favourite friend of the Emperor Alexander; that the Emperor Nicholas continued to me the kindness which his brother had shown to my father, and that I thought, as he had done, (gratitude and personal attachment apart,) that I could better serve my country, and more effectually ameliorate the condition of my tenants and vassals, by submitting to the Russian government, than by a hopeless struggle for national independence? Suppose that I were to confess, that chancing in the course of a three-years’ travel to walk through this pretty village of yours, I saw Helen, and could not rest until I had seen more of her;–supposing all this, would you pardon the deception, or rather the allowing you to deceive yourselves? Oh, if you could but imagine how delightful it is to a man, upon whom the humbling conviction has been forced, that his society is courted and his alliance sought for the accidents of rank and fortune, to feel that he is, for once in his life, honestly liked, fervently loved for himself, such as he is, his own very self,–if you could but fancy how proud he is of such friendship, how happy in such love, you would pardon him, I am sure you would; you would never have the heart to be angry. And now that the Imperial consent to a foreign union–the gracious consent for which I so anxiously waited to authorize my proposals–has at length arrived, do you think,” added the Count, with some seriousness, “that there is any chance of reconciling this dear Helen to my august master? or will she still continue a rebel?”

At this question, so gravely put, I laughed outright “Why really, my dear Count, I cannot pretend to answer decidedly for the turn that the affair might take; but my impression–to speak in that idiomatic English, more racy than elegant, which you pique yourself upon understanding–my full impression is, that Helen having for no reason upon earth but her interest in you, ratted from Conservatism to Radicalism, will for the same cause lose no time in ratting back again. A woman’s politics, especially if she be a young woman, are generally the result of feeling rather than of opinion, and our fair friend strikes me as a most unlikely subject to form an exception to the rule. However, if you doubt my authority in this matter, you have nothing to do but to inquire at the fountain-head. There she sits, in the arbour. Go and ask.”

And before the words were well spoken, the lover, radiant with happiness, was at the side of his beloved.