"In Dresden the betrothal made a most disagreeable talk; Arno's comrades were beside themselves; they adjured him to resign all thoughts of the girl, hinting that she was quite unworthy of the sacrifice he was making for her. All that they said was to no purpose, however; and in several cases Arno was with difficulty prevented from calling to a bloody account those who dared to remonstrate with him. The colonel of our regiment, by advice from very high quarters, called upon Lieutenant von Hohenwald, but his representations availed nothing against my friend's obstinacy. Arno professed himself ready to request his dismissal from the army, but not to break his plighted faith. This offer on his part would doubtless have been accepted but that war with Prussia was imminent, and the services of so brave an officer as Arno von Hohenwald could not be spared. It was therefore intimated that the royal consent to his marriage would be accorded him provided he would accede to the king's wish that it should be postponed for a year. To this condition he consented, although the pretty Rosalie pouted and sighed, and her father and mother were quite indignant at the delay. "During the short campaign that now took him from Dresden, Arno wrote frequently to his betrothed, without, however, receiving a word in reply, a circumstance for which his trusting nature found abundant explanation in the irregularity of the Bohemian postal arrangements. At Koeniggratz he was severely wounded; indeed, the newspapers reported him killed, and as such they mourned him for weeks at Castle Hohenwald. Meanwhile, he was lying unconscious in the hospital. I was in the same ward with him, only slightly wounded, however; I was soon sufficiently recovered to go to Dresden, on leave, to regain my strength there. When I left Arno his condition was still very critical; in one of his intervals of consciousness he sent a message by me to his betrothed, which I of course made it my duty to deliver as soon as possible. I found only the mother at home when I paid my visit to the rope-maker's, and she shocked and disgusted me by the want of feeling she displayed upon hearing that Arno was not dead, as had been supposed, but only dangerously wounded. She even appeared glad to learn that, in the event of his recovery, it must be months at least before he could come to Dresden. On the same day, however, all that was strange in her behaviour was fully explained to me by the physician whom I consulted with regard to my wound, and who had been a fellow-lodger of Arno's and his warm friend. As such he felt it his duty to acquaint me, the poor fellow's most intimate friend, with the wretched story that so closely concerned him, and that filled me with consternation and disgust. Arno had been infamously deceived both by his betrothed and by her parents, whose sole thought had been how to enrich themselves at whatever expense of honour and honesty. Some time before her betrothal to Arno,