Hamilton looked at Hildegarde to see what impression this conversation had made on her. She had turned away as much as possible from the speakers, and with her head bent down seemed to watch intently the bursting of the bubbles in a glass of beer. Had it been her sister, he would have thought she had chosen the occupation to conceal her embarrassment—but embarrassment was not Hildegarde’s predominant feeling; her compressed lips and quick breathing denoted suppressed anger, which amounted to rage, as her step-mother in direct terms asked Major Stultz if he were married, and received for answer that he was “a bachelor, at her service.” With a sudden jerk, the glass was prostrated on the table, and before Hamilton could raise his arm its contents were deposited in the sleeve of his coat. “_Pardon mille-fois!_” cried Hildegarde, looking really sorry for what had occurred. “You irritable, awkward girl!” commenced her mother; but for some undoubtedly excellent reason, she suddenly changed her manner, and added—“You had better go to bed, child; I see you have not yet recovered from the recent alarm in the church.” Hildegarde rose quickly from her chair, and with a slight and somewhat haughty obeisance to the company, left the room in silence. Madame Rosenberg continued volubly to excuse her to Hamilton, and, what he thought quite unnecessary, to Major Stultz also! The Major listened with complacence; but Hamilton’s wet shirt-sleeve induced him to finish his supper as quickly as possible and wish the company good-night. --------------------- CHAPTER II. THE INITIALS. HAMILTON thought there were few things so disagreeable as going to bed, excepting, perhaps, getting up again. He was incorrigibly indolent in this respect, and nothing but the most fresh and beautiful of mornings, aided perhaps by the transparent muslin curtains, which had admitted every ray of light from daybreak, could have induced him to get up and be dressed at six o’clock; and that, too, without any immediate object in view, for three or four hours at least must elapse before he could venture to intrude on “A. Z.” He was not a little surprised to find Crescenz and her sister already in the garden; but having no inclination for a renewal of the organ-loft scene, he turned towards a row of clumsy, flat-bottomed boats, sprung into one of them, and in a few minutes was far out in the lake, where he quietly leaned on his oars, and began to look about him.