'I speak but my thoughts, dearest mamma.' 'Her father, the Staats Rath, gave her away to him as a child; but you, as well as I do, know the arrangement made by our family; they were betrothed when she was in her cradle, and he a schoolboy at Bonn; and now he comes to claim her hand, in virtue of that betrothal,' added the Countess, who, though a German, had considerable nobility and dignity in her bearing and aspect. 'Such foolish arrangements may have been made long ago, Aunt Adelaide, when robber-barons lived in those ruined castles which look down from every rock upon the Rhine; but such would be absurd in these days of ours, when its waters are ploughed up by steamers, and the lurlies and elves have all been put to flight.' 'Herminia,' said the Countess, with increasing severity, 'do you revere the memory of the Baron and Privy Councillor your father?' 'I do, indeed, Aunt Adelaide; my father's memory is very dear to me, even as that of my dead mother, whom I never saw,' replied the girl, with her eyes growing moist; 'but I decline to admit the right of either to give me, while yet a helpless child, away to anyone in marriage. The idea is eccentric; it is more, it is odious and preposterous!' 'You use somewhat strong language, Grafine.' 'Surely not stronger than the situation merits?' replied Herminia, her soft voice trembling with agitation and annoyance. 'If my cousin Heinrich is unmanly enough to insist upon the fulfilment of this most absurd family compact, I shall ever deem him most unworthy of my regard, or, indeed, that of any woman!' added Herminia, whose tears now began to fall. 'Then it is your resolution to violate, to trample upon, to utterly disregard the affectionate contract made by your parents and by his?' 'But I have never seen this--this most tiresome cousin, Aunt Adelaide!' 'That has been a misfortune caused by your being educated in England, while he was at the university, and then with the army.' 'Hence he is to me a stranger, and must be greeted and received as such.' 'I think my brother Heinrich is acting foolishly in bringing the English friend (of whom he writes so frequently) to Frankenburg,' said Ernestine. 'Why?' asked the Countess. 'Because Herminia, in the very spirit of opposition, may fall in love with _him_.' 'My father could not have taken a surer way to make me shun and loathe my cousin, and even do something more dreadful still, than by forming this arrangement.' 'Something more dreadful still!' repeated the Countess, raising her voice, and surveying her niece through her gold eyeglass. 'In Heaven's name, what _do_ you mean, Herminia?' 'By compelling me to marry a man I don't love; for what happiness could follow a union with a total stranger? Besides, I don't want to marry.'