On the greenest turf, underneath an oak, there sat three persons, in the bloom of youth. Two of the three were brothers; the third was an orphan girl, whom the lord of the opposite tower of Sternfels had bequeathed to the protection of his brother, the chief of Liebenstein. The castle itself and the demesne that belonged to it passed away from the female line, and became the heritage of Otho the orphan's cousin, and the younger of the two brothers now seated on the turf. "And oh," said the elder, whose name was Warbeck, "you have twined a chaplet for my brother; have you not, dearest Leoline, a simple flower for me?" The beautiful orphan--(for beautiful she was, Gertrude, as the heroine of the tale you bid me tell ought to be,--should she not have to the dreams of my fancy your lustrous hair, and your sweet smile, and your eyes of blue, that are never, never silent? Ah, pardon me that in a former tale I denied the heroine the beauty of your face, and remember that, to atone for it, I endowed her with the beauty of your mind)--the beautiful orphan blushed to her temples, and culling from the flowers in her lap the freshest of the roses, began weaving them into a wreath for Warbeck. "It would be better," said the gay Otho, "to make my sober brother a chaplet of the rue and cypress; the rose is much too bright a flower for so serious a knight." Leoline held up her hand reprovingly. "Let him laugh, dearest cousin," said Warbeck, gazing passionately on her changing cheek: "and thou, Leoline, believe that the silent stream runs the deepest." At this moment, they heard the voice of the old chief, their father, calling aloud for Leoline; for ever, when he returned from the chase, he wanted her gentle presence; and the hall was solitary to him if the light sound of her step, and the music of her voice, were not heard in welcome. Leoline hastened to her guardian, and the brothers were left alone. Nothing could be more dissimilar than the features and the respective characters of Otho and Warbeck. Otho's countenance was flushed with the brown hues of health; his eyes were of the brightest hazel: his dark hair wreathed in short curls round his open and fearless brow; the jest ever echoed on his lips, and his step was bounding as the foot of the hunter of the Alps. Bold and light was his spirit; if at times he betrayed the haughty insolence of youth, he felt generously, and though not ever ready to confess sorrow for a fault, he was at least ready to brave peril for a friend. But Warbeck's frame, though of equal strength, was more slender in its proportions than that of his brother; the fair long hair that characterised his northern race hung on either side of a countenance calm and pale, and deeply impressed with thought, even to sadness. His features, more majestic and regular than Otho's, rarely varied in their expression. More resolute even than Otho, he was less impetuous; more impassioned, he was also less capricious.