"The happy know no hour," said Oswald to himself, following the slender youthful figure with his eyes; "my meteorological observations have evidently not made her happy, and she was less anxious to get back to the house than to get away from me. At all events, she seems to have time enough to gather a pretty bouquet. It is no doubt intended for me. I have evidently made a conquest. How she looked at me with her, wonderful eyes, half pitying, half contemptuous, as if she meant to say: I do you a great favor if I leave you alone with your bashfulness! She is proud, says Bruno, but how well that pride becomes her! How can a girl with such a face, such eyes, and such hair, be anything else but proud? It is her atmosphere, in which alone she can live, as the eagle in the highest regions of the air. The eagle is proud, too, and no one blames him for it.... How very beautiful she is! A superb beauty that need not be afraid of broad daylight, and that seems to be the greater the more costly the frame is in which it is set. A weird kind of beauty, too, that enchains us, and transfixes us as that of the deadly beautiful Medusa. Ah! now I know it! It is the very face of the Grenwitz family, of which Albert spoke--divine, and yet not without its trace of the Evil One! Feature by feature! it is Harald's face translated into the other sex; the same demoniac eyes, the same intoxicating feature around the full, almost exuberant lips, the same strength in the luxuriant bluish black hair which curls high up on the broad, firm forehead!--Gracious mamma! You are sorely mistaken if you fancy that forehead will easily bow to your decrees! Excellent Baron Felix, you will have to do great credit to your name as the lucky one, if you wish to succeed here! The morning is really delightful, and one would really be tempted to consider bad weather a fairy tale when one sees the skies so deep blue." Oswald had of late been so exclusively occupied with his own affairs that he now felt the want, for a change, to interest himself in the affairs of others. The baroness was surprised at the sympathy with which he entered upon her ideas at table, and during a long conversation after dinner. He actually discussed with her several questions which she raised about his instruction: Would it not be expedient during the hot terms to commence the lessons at seven instead of eight? Might not the afternoon lessons be altogether omitted? Did he think the books which Helen had so far used for her studies of History and Literature still suitable for her? Would two lessons a week suffice for her? and did he think the morning or the evening better for the purpose?