In the saddest of sad moods the Lady Isoleth betook herself to her favorite retreat among the rocks, and there within her own little vine-covered bower, was--not a bird, nor a squirrel, nor her tame deer--but a man! young and wondrously handsome; with a broad, pale, noble brow, and a host of jet-black curls shading it. There was something in his clear, dark eye, so still and serene as it gazed beyond this world, and something in the expression of his fine, manly face, so tender, so almost sad, that made her forget to be afraid of him. She approached him gently, and asked him in a soft voice, "What are thy meditations, beautiful stranger?" "I was dreaming of thee!" uttered he, awaking from his reverie, and fixing his dark, earnest eyes full upon the glowing form before him. His glance, so full of passion, so full of tenderness, so fervent, went to her heart and woke it up--that precious little heart that had been sleeping for sixteen long years. "Of me! How can that be?" asked Isoleth, with a deep blush. "Dost thou know me? Dost thou--' "One like thee, most beautiful being!" "One like me--just like me? How strange! What is her name?" "Whatever is thy name, loveliest, most lovely lady, is hers." "My name is Isoleth," replied she, with a low voice, and a deep blush. "Art thou the Lady Isoleth of Fernheath? _Art_ thou? Stupid! that I did not see sooner that thou art! Yes, thou art! And I am happy, most happy, most inconceivably happy that thou art! Ah!" continued he, in a tone of the most rapturous delight, "that my dream and my bride should prove to be one and the same. I am most inexpressibly joyful!"--and the large tears fell from his eyes like summer rain--"most unutterably--and thou, wilt thou love me, and be mine, my glorious, sweetest, loveliest cousin--my most, most beautiful bride!" "Thy cousin! thy bride! Alas! alas! thy cousin I may be, but thy bride--! They are going to marry me up there at the castle to an old, ugly, cross prince; he is there now, and you cannot know how much I hate him. I will die--" "The devil they are! Forgive me, sweetest, most beautiful cousin, it is a foolish way we learn of speaking in camps. But, loveliest, do not talk of dying, let the old and the ugly die, but thou--First tell me who this ugly, old, cross prince is, they shall not marry you to any such." "Why he is not so very ugly--and I do not exactly know that he is cross; but then he is old, very old--yes, very old and very disagreeable--and I never can love him." "Nor shalt thou--his name, most beautiful?" "Ferdinand, Prince of Bernstorf." "Ferdinand, prince of ten thousand devils! I beseech of thee to forgive me once again, sweetest cousin; but thou dost petrify me. Ferdinand, Prince of ---- Ah! it must be--yes, yes, it must be so." "What must be? Thou speakest in riddles, stranger cousin." "And thou lovest him not, nor dost thou wish to wed him?" asked the stranger, an almost provoking smile just curling his handsome mouth.