"She will be a woman by and by," the strange boy said, with a soft and delicate voice, "and then she too will be coming to us, and we will provide fine sorrows for her." "No, Hinzelmann," Count Manuel replied, as he stroked the round straw-colored head of little Melicent. "This is the child of Niafer. She comes of a race that has no time to be peering out of dubious windows." "It is your child too, Count Manuel. Therefore she too, between now and her burial, will be wanting to be made free of my sister Suskind's kingdom, as you have been made free of it, at a price. Oh, very certainly you have paid little as yet save the one lock of your gray hair, but in time you will pay the other price which Suskind demands. I know, for it is I who collect my sister Suskind's revenues, and when the proper hour arrives, believe me, Count Manuel, I shall not be asking your leave, nor is there any price which you, I think, will not be paying willingly." "That is probable. For Suskind is wise and strange, and the grave beauty of her youth is the fulfilment of an old hope. Life had become a tedious matter of much money and much bloodshed, but she has restored to me the gold and crimson of dawn." "So, do you very greatly love my sister Suskind?" says Hinzelmann, smiling rather sadly. "She is my heart's delight, and the desire of my desire. It was she for whom, unwittingly, I had been longing always, since I first went away from Suskind, to climb upon the gray heights of Vraidex in my long pursuit of much wealth and fame. I had seen my wishes fulfilled, and my dreams accomplished; all the godlike discontents which ennobled my youth had died painlessly in cushioned places. And living had come to be a habit of doing what little persons expected, and youth was gone out of me, and I, that used to follow with a high head after my own thinking and my own desires, could not any longer very greatly care for anything. Now I am changed: for Suskind has made me free once more of the Country of the Young and of the ageless self-tormenting youth of the gray depths which maddened Ruric, but did not madden me."