Erna had not yet risen, but had fallen into a light sleep; and as he came to the bedside she softly murmured his name, as if she were even in her morning dream conscious that he had returned. Her white throat was bare, and from her lovely bosom the draperies were half displaced, so that its rounded swell melted into a foam of lace as if she were Aphrodite just emerging from the waves. All his newly found earnestness fell from Albrecht like a garment, and he was only conscious of his wife and his passion for her; albeit his love was not to-day the selfish desire of the kobold alone, as it had been last night. Fired by her beauty, he bent over and kissed her. She awoke with a smile that melted into a blush as she saw the ardent eyes of Albrecht bent upon her and felt his embrace steal about her. She let him lift her to kiss her again, and then she hid her shining face in his breast. "Now thou must go," she said, as she returned his embrace. "They will stay for us in the hall. Send me my damsel, and I will be ready very quickly." "Yes," he cried, springing up with all his old joyousness; "be thou as swift as may be, that we may bestow upon thee the _Morgengabe_." The Lady Adelaide, after the manner of her kind, had been most curious in regard to the _Morgengabe_. Her maid Elsa had plied the retainers of Baron von Waldstein with questions, and the Lady Adelaide herself had not been above some cunning attempts to extract from Herr von Zimmern somewhat touching the nature and extent of the bridegroom's ability and probable liberality in this direction, but neither had obtained any definite information. Herr Frederich had replied that his master certainly had the means and the disposition to do things upon a grand scale, but he professed complete ignorance as to Baron Albrecht's actual intentions, a statement which Lady Adelaide took the liberty of doubting, as it seemed probable that the orders which her newly made nephew had sent home had been executed through Herr von Zimmern. As nothing further was to be got out of this functionary, however, and as Elsa found the men of the baron equally uncommunicative, there was no help for it, but curiosity must wait unsatisfied until the bridegroom's gift should be bestowed.