enjoyment; the breath of the spring flowers was like the balm of Eden, the singing of the birds an angels' choir. I enjoyed all, in those days; I loved you all well. My heart was open as the Heaven to every human creature. The whole universe had nothing but delight, except when sometimes I thought, with a regretful sullenness, that you were destined to the busy scenes in which I longed to mingle, and I to a cloister's gloom, and the separation of a hard vow from all my fellow men. But that was nothing: a light cloud upon a summer's sky, in a moment borne away, and all was sunshine again, and cheerfulness.--Do you remember, Ferdinand? It seems to me but yesterday." His face lighted up, as if the sunshine of early days shone forth on his countenance; and as he spoke, he laid his hand forgetfully upon his brother's arm, and gazed upon him with a look of tender memory. The Count, too, gave way to the soft influences of those early days: they came back upon him, as his brother spoke. One harsh feeling after another faded away, like darkness giving place to light: he leaned his arm upon Count William's shoulder; and, bending down his head, while a tear trickled from his eye, he said, "I do remember, William; I do remember all right well." "And what am I now?" asked his brother, suddenly withdrawing from him, as if he felt that he was not worthy of that kind familiar touch; "a wretch, an outcast, hated by all, abhorrent to myself. But that is nothing--all nothing to the past. I am happier now than heretofore; for the effect of that dark struggle in my heart was strange and terrible; from kind, I had become fierce and cruel; from gentle and patient, angry and proud. Powerless to enjoy, I hated the sight of enjoyment; and with a chain of adamant about my heart, the sight of a free spirit in another was bitterness to me. Only, indeed, in the case of this youth and this dear girl did I ever witness the pure and simple pleasures of happy innocence, without hating what I witnessed for the reproof it bore me. But it was not so with them.--He knows it was not.--In his wild energies and soaring fancy, in his free spirit and his bold heart, he would often call back the brother of my youth, vaguely but sweetly, and in the regrets I felt there might mingle melancholy, but no pain. It was too indistinct to wound. It was as a sight or a sound that we have known in childhood, coming back upon the ear of age, and cheating it with a misty dream of early joy. "Oh, it was sweet to mark him; and, though sometimes--provoked to sudden frenzy, as if a demon whispered, he had wrongs to avenge upon me--I would be fierce and wayward with him, like a tyrant as I was, yet Heaven can testify that I loved him better than any being on earth, except this my child."