to think and talk wisely and to act foolishly are, it is well known, different things, which still can very well go hand in hand. It is true that an impassioned heart could not very well resist being touched by so much beauty, grace, and mind combined in one person. All who came in contact with Helen felt the charm, the wonderful charm, she possessed; it seemed almost impossible not to take at once part for or against her with enthusiasm, so that even in the servants' hall lively scenes occurred, in which her attractions were discussed. The taciturn coachman would growl out that all was not gold that glitters, and the good old cook would reply that the angels of course never came to visit bad and envious men; then followed an angry and unprofitable discussion about bad men in general and in particular, which led to strange and sharp sayings on both sides, while the master and his family were handled without gloves, and much was said down stairs that would have struck horror into the hearts of the company up stairs. Thus they were pretty well agreed in those lower regions that Baron Felix had not come to Castle Grenwitz for amusement only, and his valet hinted that some people could say a good deal about that, if discretion was not the first duty of a good servant. He only desired to add, that his master was apt to carry out whatever he undertook, and that, in his opinion, there was not a young lady in this world who could resist his master for any length of time--an assertion which called forth most violent opposition on the part of the ladies present. What these people discovered, Oswald's eye, sharpened a hundred-fold by love, could not overlook. He saw daily how the baron made every effort to win his fair cousin's love, how he brought into play all the skill he had acquired in a thousand intrigues on the smooth floor of brilliant salons in the capital, all the cleverness with which Nature had lavishly endowed him, and all the advantages he enjoyed as a near relative. He could not fail to see that the baroness sustained these efforts with wise discretion in every useful way, seconding Felix as indefatigably as ably. He would say: No! or remain silent, when Bruno, after dinner or during a walk, would tell him, with angry face, of some new impudence of "that ape Felix," but he knew very well that the boy had seen or heard right, and his only consolation was that Helen's pride would never consent to a union with a man so totally unworthy of her hand.