the heart of the beast, so that it fell down on the spot. The lady, surprised at this unexpected phenomena, looked round for the unknown hunter, which, when the marksman perceived, he stepped forward and bowed humbly to the ground. The Lady Libussa thought she had never seen a handsomer man. At the very first glance his frame made upon her so strong an impression that she could not help being involuntarily prepossessed in his favour, and confessing he was of a noble figure. “Tell me, dear stranger,” said she, “who are thou, and what chance has conducted thee to these precincts?” The youth rightly surmised that his good fortune had allowed him to find what he sought, so he modestly communicated his wishes, not forgetting to say, how uncivilly he had been dismissed from the doors of her sisters, and how much he had been afflicted in consequence. She cheered his mind with kind words. “Follow me to my dwelling,” said she, “I will question for thee the book of fate, and to-morrow at sunrise I will give thee information.” The youth obeyed her orders: here there was no churlish porter to prevent his entrance into the palace; here the lovely resident exercised the law of hospitality most liberally towards him. He was delighted with this favourable reception, but still more so with the charms of his fair hostess. The enchanting form flitted before his eyes all night, and he carefully guarded against the approach of sleep, that the events of the past day which he reflected on with delight might not leave his thoughts for a single moment. The Lady Libussa on the other hand, enjoyed a gentle slumber, for retirement from the impressions of the outward senses, which disturb the fine anticipations of the future, is indispensable to the gift of prophecy. Nevertheless the glowing fancy of the elf’s sleeping daughter united the form of the young stranger to all the visionary forms that appeared to her in the night. She found him where she did not seek him, and under such circumstances that she could not understand how she should have any relation to this stranger. When the fair prophetess, on waking early in the morning, endeavoured as usual to separate and unravel the visions of the night, she was disposed to reject them altogether as illusions that had sprung from an aberration of fancy, and to give them no more attention. But a dark feeling told her that the creation of her fancy was not a mere empty dream, but that it pointed to certain events, which the future would unfold, and that this same prophetic fancy, had in the night just passed, overheard the secret counsels of destiny better than ever, and had blabbed them out to her. In the same way, she found that the guest now under her roof was violently inflamed with ardent love, and her heart quite as unreservedly made her the same confession with respect to him; but she set the seal of secrecy upon the information, while the modest youth, on his side, had vowed that he