In his letter there was no mention of Carl Pierrepont, and no enclosure for _her_, thought Ernestine; but then, as Heinrich wrote to the Countess, he could not make a communication concerning him; so the girl, though her joy for her brother's safety was somewhat clouded by that circumstance and the wish that Heinrich had written to Herminia; could but wait and hope--hope and pray. 'A little time, and my dear brother will tell me all,' she said to herself; 'but, oh! this suspense--this mystery concerning the fate of my Carl, is intolerable!' And now, in the excess of their happiness, the intended marriage of her and the Baron was revived in greater force than ever. Heinrich was returning, and his presence would make the happiness of all complete. Daily, Ernestine, while scanning the papers with keen and haggard eyes for intelligence of the lost one, heard the marriage arrangement schemed out; the projected breakfast; the cake which was to come from the most celebrated confectioner in Aix; the _trousseau_, which was to come from the most fashionable Putzmacherin (or _modiste_) in Berlin; the feast in the hall, and who were to be invited; whether the honeymoon was to be spent at Wiesbaden, at Carlsbad, or Bruckenau, and the girl listened to them as if she had been turned to stone. But there is a writer who says, 'Age legislates and youth trespasses; but the tide of love no more recedes at a _bidding_, than King Canute's waves.' Only once, however, did the sympathizing Herminia think her pale cousin was about to yield, when one night she laid her head on her bosom, and said with a gasping shudder, 'Oh, how terrible it is to give one's hand to the living when one's heart has been given to the dead!' 'But your dear Carl may not be dead. Heinrich is returning.' Other times there were when she would not believe that he was dead, yet how many brave hearts were growing cold in death then all over Northern France! How many men yet were to perish among the blushing vineyards of Champagne, and under the beleaguered walls of Paris! The cruel _Blatt_ had only said he had been wounded. But how had he disappeared? 'He will return--oh, yet he will return! Kind God, you would not take him from me!' And in the fervour of such a moment she would lift her streaming eyes upward with a trustful and angelic expression.