while her face is without a smile. A loftier, nobler longing is then visible on her face, a longing deeper than love, higher than the desire of fame--perhaps it is that self-consciousness of great souls who foresee that their names will be an eternal remembrance. Behind the loving pair, ride side by side two cavaliers who, to judge from their dress, belong to the higher nobility. One of them is a man of about thirty, with a long, glistening black beard; he sits upon a full-blood Barbary charger, with a white star upon its forehead; the other is a sallow man advanced in years, whose long, light moustache is already touched with grey; an astrachan cap covers his high, bald, wrinkled forehead; his beard is carefully clipped, and his dress almost ostentatiously simple. No lace adorns his jacket, no fringe of any sort sets off the caparison of his good steed; his neckerchief, which peeps out of his dolman, might almost be considered shabby. This man does not appear to stand very high in the estimation of his companion, and marks of annoyance at the neglect he suffers are plainly visible on his shrewd, not to say crafty, features. The reader would do well to study this man's face, for we shall often meet with him. Cold, withered features, thin fair hair and beard speckled with grey; a pointed, double chin; disdainful, contracted lips; keen and lively, red-rimmed, sea-green eyes; projecting eyebrows; a lofty, bald, shining forehead which, beneath the play of his emotions, becomes furrowed with wrinkles in all directions. This face we must not forget; the others--the herculean horseman, the laughing youth, the stately Amazon--will only flit across our path and disappear; but he will accompany us all through our story, pulling down and building up wherever he appears, and holding in his hands the destinies of great men and great nations. The bald-pate drew nearer to the cavalier trotting by his side, who was balancing his spear in one hand as if to test it, and said to him in a low tone, as if continuing a conversation already begun-- "So you will not interfere in the matter?" "Pray don't trouble me with politics now," replied the other, with a gesture of angry impatience. "You cannot live a day without planning or plotting; but pray spare me for to-day! I want to hunt now, and you know how passionately I love the chase." With these words he gave his horse the spur, galloped forward, and caught up the herculean horseman. The other bit his lips angrily at this roughish flout, but immediately turned with a smile towards the youthful cavalier ambling in front of him. "A splendid morning, my lord! Would that our horizon were only as serene in every direction!" "It is indeed," returned the youth, without exactly knowing what he was saying, whilst his heroine bent over him with a darkening face, and whispered-- "I don't know how it is, but I am always suspicious of that man. He is continually asking questions, but never answers any himself."