Radiant with beauty, and conscious of the sensation she was certain to create, she entered the magnificent apartment where supper was prepared--a supper splendid and costly enough to have satisfied a whole army of epicures, though only intended for her father, the stranger, and herself; and if you, oh reader! had been there, you would have thought Christina lovely enough to have excited the admiration of a whole court instead of an old man--and that, too, her father--and a young one, and that none other, to Christina's infinite disgust, than the very Count Ericson whose acquaintance she had already made, and whom she infinitely and unappeasably disliked. He was the most awkward, stupid-looking young man she ever saw, and had furnished her with a butt for her malicious pleasantries ever since she had known him. He rose to lead her to her seat. "How different from Adolphus! If he is no better performer in the battle-field than at the supper-table, the King must be very ill off for soldiers. What can papa mean by asking such a horrid being to his house? I am certain I shall laugh outright if I look again at his silly grey eyes and long yellow hair, as ragged as a pony's mane." Such were Christina's thoughts, while she bit her lips to hide if possible her inclination to be angry, and to laugh at the same time. And in truth her dislike of the Count did not exaggerate the ridiculousness of the appearance of the tall ungainly figure--large-boned and stiff-backed--that now stood before her--with a nose so absurdly aquiline that it would have done for a caricature--coarse-skinned cheeks, and a stare of military impudence that shocked and nearly frightened the high-bred, elegant-looking beauty on whom it was fixed. And yet this individual, such as we have described, had been fixed on by the higher powers for her husband--was this night to be treated as her accepted lover, and, in short, had been closeted for hours every day with her father--settling all the preliminaries of course--for the last six weeks. Christina looked once more at the insolent stare of the triumphant soldier, and made a vow to die rather than speak to him--that is, in the affirmative.