“I cannot approve, my daughter, of such admiration for a stranger whom you may never see again.” “Oh,” said the young girl, upon whose soul these cold words fell like a heavy weight, “do not believe it. We shall see him again. Was it not for your sake that he went forth to brave such danger?” “Like yourself, I confess that I was at first deceived by his promises. But no; he will never go upon his mission, and therefore he will never return to us.” “He did go, sir; he did go.” The tone in which the young girl pronounced these words was almost that of one offended and insulted. She felt herself outraged in her Ordener’s person. Alas! she was only too sure in her own soul of the truth which she asserted. The prisoner replied, seemingly unmoved: “Very well. If he has really gone to fight that brigand, if he has rushed into such danger, it comes to the same thing,--he will never return.” Poor Ethel! how often a word indifferently uttered, painfully galls the hidden wound in an anxious and tortured heart! She bent her pale face to hide from her father’s stern gaze the tears which, in spite of all her efforts, fell from her burning eyes. “Oh, father,” she sighed, “while you speak thus, this noble and unfortunate youth may be dying for your sake!” The aged minister shook his head doubtfully. “That I can neither believe nor wish. And even so, how am I to blame? I should merely show myself ungrateful to the young man, as so many others have shown themselves to me.” A deep sigh was Ethel’s only answer; and Schumacker, turning to his table, tore up with an absent air a few leaves of “Plutarch’s Lives,” which volume lay before him, already tattered in countless places, and covered with marginal notes. A moment later the door opened, and Schumacker, without looking up, cried out as usual: “Do not enter! do not disturb me! I will see no one!” “It is his Excellency the governor,” was the answer. An elderly man dressed in the uniform of a general, with the collars of the Elephant, the Dannebrog, and the Golden Fleece about his neck, advanced toward Schumacker, who half rose, muttering, “The governor! the governor!” The general bowed respectfully to Ethel, as she stood at her father’s side, timidly and anxiously watching him.