Marie did not deign to give the unhappy young man another look during the evening, and he was too much occupied with the painful sensations of his own mind, to be aware of her ill will towards him. He was also so unfortunate as to be scarcely able to say another word alone and unobserved to Bertha. The ball ended, and left him in doubt as to what her future fate, or the intentions of her father were likely to be. She seized, however, a favourable moment to whisper to him on the staircase, when she was going home, begging him to remain in the town on the morrow, in the hope of finding an opportunity to speak with him. The two girls went home, both ill at ease with each other. Marie gave short, snappish answers to Bertha's questions, who, whether it was that she suspected what was passing in her cousin's mind, or whether she was overwhelmed by grief, became more melancholy and reserved than ever. But when they entered their room, silent and cold towards each other, then it was that they both felt how painful was the interruption of their hitherto affectionate intercourse. Up to this eventful evening, they had always assisted each other in all those little services, which unite young girls in friendship. How different was it now? Marie had taken the silver pin out of her rich light hair, which fell in long ringlets over her beautiful neck. She attempted to put it up under her cap, but unaccustomed to arrange it without Bertha's help, and too proud to let her enemy, as she now called her cousin in her mind, notice her embarrassment, she threw it away in a corner, and seized a handkerchief to tie it up. Bertha, unconscious of having offended her cousin, could not fail noticing her change of affection towards her, and felt acutely the apparent sting of her ruffled temper. She quietly picked up the cap, and came to render her cousin her usual assistance. "Away with you, you false one!" said the angry Marie, as she pushed away the helping hand. "Dearest Marie, have I deserved this of you?" said Bertha, gently, and with tenderness. "Oh, if you but knew how unhappy I am, you would not be so harsh with me." "Unhappy, indeed!" loudly laughed the other, "unhappy! because the courteous knight only danced with you once, I suppose." "You are very hard, Marie," replied Bertha; "you are angry with me, and will not even tell me the cause of your displeasure." "Really! so you do not know how you have deceived me? but you cannot keep your duplicity a secret any longer, which has subjected me to scorn and confusion. I never could have thought you would have acted so ungenerously, so falsely by me!" The wounded feeling of being out-done by her cousin, and as she thought, despised by Sturmfeder, was again awakened in Marie's mind; her tears flowed, she laid her heated forehead in her hand, and her rich locks fell over and hid her face.