"Whose eyelids quiver not like those of mortals;" and then when he ceased to, speak she was like one awakening from a dream, drawing a long breath, which caused her maiden bosom to rise and sink! Nor were other promising tokens wanting. He had, for good reasons of his own, disregarded Erna's request to be henceforth less kind to Lydia; nay, he had doubled his attentions and courtesies, not only towards the coquettish lady, but towards the Baron too. It seemed so easy now to pardon, to show indulgence, to look at all things from the best and most amiable point of view; and politeness is a veil behind which one may hide so much. At first he had been prepared for opposition or serious displeasure on the part of the proud, self-willed girl; but nothing of the kind occurred; she either seemed not to notice his disobedience, or actually to approve of it; and once or twice, when he somewhat overdid his part, a meaning smile played about her mouth. Nay, more, she followed, though with evident hesitation, his example; she no longer met Lydia's fantastic exaggerations with short and sharp replies, or with that frigid non-recognition which is more cutting than direct blame: she continued, as on the first evening or two, to sing and play with the Baron; she even suffered herself to be put into the famous terrace picture, and was patient enough to sit to him for a couple of hours, in which the Baron, with his brush, was constantly taking one step forward and two backward, as it were; while he vowed again and again that this was the most grateful, but also the most difficult, task which he had ever undertaken in his life. And there was yet one thing more which had struck him as peculiarly strange and important. Erna was accustomed to repeat her interlocutors' names frequently in the course of conversation, and to add them, even to quite trivial phrases or questions. From the first days of his visit he still recalled with delight her sweet "How are you, Uncle Bertram?"--"Yes, Uncle Bertram"--"No, Uncle Bertram." But sweeter, sweeter far it seemed to him that he now no longer heard it--no, not once--that her conversation now was plain yea and nay, as enjoined in Holy Writ, and quite in accordance with the wild wish of his heart. Hilarie, too, had surely ceased to call her lover--Uncle. Poor Major! But it served him right, after all, for it was not youth so much that he lacked, as the courage and force of genuine passion. "That man must ever be a youthful man Who is well-pleasing to a maiden's eyes!" And he does please her well, because she feels with the unerring instinct of true love that he can and will give love for love.