Gabrielle, being fair and blue-eyed, appeared pale and languid; the brightness of her expression had faded, and the rosy tinge of her cheek had died. The dark orbs of Ernestine--those magnificent eyes, which she inherited from her mother, a lady of Spanish Flanders--still presented their wonted fire and brilliance. Gabrielle's gentle spirit sank; she became fearful, docile, and child-like; but when the ship lurched, the wind freshened, when chairs and tables went crashing all to leeward, when the loose cannon-shot rolled from side to side, and the weather-guns strained their lashings until the ringbolts almost started from the stancheons, the proud Ernestine--wilful, and perhaps unmanageable at other times--laughed at her sister's terror. Then the count praised her firmness, calling her his brave girl, and Gabrielle his poor little baby. Every moment increased the respect and tenderness, the vague sensation of mingled joy and sadness, with which the merit and beauty of Ernestine had first inspired me; and I felt, that if she had not already divined my important secret, I could not conceal it very long. A hundred times I was on the point of recalling to her memory--or rather, seeking to resume--our last conversation, and my farewell to her at Luneburg. I was certain she could not have forgotten it; but now an unconquerable timidity repressed me. Being young, and but a plain soldier, I was naturally backward. One moment I resolved to let events develop themselves, and the next to declare my passion to the count and to her; but there was a polished dignity--a terrible air of self-possession about them both--that put all my resolutions completely to rout; for the fear of her refusal, the memory of his preference for Count Kœningheim, and his promise to him, damped my rising courage, and I felt that I would rather, a thousand times, have faced a brigade even of Lowland pikes, than ventured on a subject which seemed so distant from _their_ thoughts, though it involved my whole future happiness and fate. "The count might ask," I reflected, "where are your estates?" I could but lay a hand on my sword, and "Here--with this blade I clothe and feed myself." "And your home, Master Philip?"--"Wherever the colours of my regiment happen to be." These soldier-like answers would assuredly do very well for a baggage-wife, but were scarcely suited to the present purpose; and so I cogitated, until I--poor devil!--made myself as miserable as it was possible to be.