"When you receive this letter, I shall have left Rome for another place of residence. Do not try to seek me: you will not find me. Do not call me 'cruel'; in these lines you see only the victory I have obtained over myself, but not my anguish, my tears. Beloved, I extend my arms to you, and would fain press you to my aching heart, but only the cold phantom of womanly duty and honor bends toward me, and breathes an icy kiss on my burning lips. Oh, it is hard to be cast off by one you love, and compelled to renounce your most ardent desire! But, Heinrich, it is still harder to reject him yourself, and voluntarily resign that for which you long. These, Heinrich, are superhuman victories, and they strip all blossoms of youth from the heart; but it is better to lose them than reap the envenomed fruit of eternal remorse. May God keep his gentle, fatherly hand over you! He can still lead you to happiness, and he alone. "Cornelia Erwing." It was morning when _Heinrich_ read and re-read this letter, until a sorrow never imagined before made the words swim before his eyes, and lay like a weight upon his chest, until, with a half-stifled cry of agony, he bent his head upon the sheet lying before him. He started as if bewildered, when Anton suddenly appeared, and informed him that a message had come, summoning him to go to the palace as soon as possible. A few hours after, the bells rang, the cannon thundered, and the populace shouted with joy, for in the palace a new-born child, a prince, lay in a golden cradle. The hope of the country, whose fulfillment slumbered in that little heart, stood by its side uttering a benediction, and the promise of a great future encircled the baby brow with an invisible crown.