With difficulty I made my way through the dense mass that filled the antechamber, and at length reached one of the reception-rooms, scarcely less crowded. On every side I beheld some of the highest persons of the city: groups of officers in splendid uniforms, ambassadors glittering in orders and crosses, distinguished foreigners, artists, authors, were all mingled together in thick profusion, enjoying the magnificence and splendour which unbounded wealth, guided and directed by the most cultivated taste, could create. Standing in mute admiration of a beautiful figure of Psyche, which seemed fresh from the chisel of Canova, I was roused by a voice addressing me, while at the same moment my shoulder was gently tapped. I turned;--it was the Count himself. “Ah, Monsieur le Baron,” said he, “‘_Enfin après un an!_’ as Racine has it. Where have you buried yourself and all your agreeability these ages past? But come, I shall not tax your invention for excuses and apologies; follow me--the Countess has heard me frequently speak of you, and longs to make your acquaintance. This way--after me as well as you can.” The friendly tone of the Count, as well as its being almost the first time of my being addressed by my new title, brought a deep blush to my cheek, which fortunately was unobserved as I followed him in the crowd. He passed through this room to one still larger, filled with parties playing at several small tables, and thence into an oval salon, where waltzing was going on. With great difficulty we got through this, and arrived at a curtain of white cloth, fringed at the bottom with deep and massive silver lace; this he drew gently aside, and we entered the boudoir. Upon a small ottoman, over which was thrown a rich Persian shawl, sat the Countess. “Isadora,” said the Count, as he approached--“Isadora, ‘_carissima mia_,’ this is my friend, Carl Stelling.” She lifted her head from the picture she was shewing to a lady beside her, and as her eye beamed fully upon me and her lips parted to address me, I fell fainting to the ground. “It is!--it is!” I muttered, as the last ray of consciousness was leaving my whirling brain. When I recovered, the Count was standing over me bathing my temples. I looked wildly around. I saw we were still in the boudoir, although all but one or two had departed; and from the window, now opened, there came a cool and refreshing breeze. I looked anxiously around for the Countess: she stood at a table, her cheek deadly pale, and I thought her appearance evinced great agitation. I heard her, in a low whisper, ask,-- “What can this mean?” I immediately recovered myself sufficiently to say, that, overcome by the heat of the salon, in my then weak state, that I felt completely overpowered. But I saw my explanation seemed incomplete, and that some words must have fallen from me which I did not remember. The Count, at the same instant, putting his lips to my ear, said,--