Something, however, he must seek to interest him, and he turned towards Hildegarde. A more dangerous study he could scarcely have found. She was seated on the grass, outside the door of the wooden pavilion, beside her brothers, and, for the first time since he had known her, seemed occupied with them. There was a quiet avoidance of Zedwitz on her part, which, in contrast to the coquetry of her sister, particularly interested Hamilton. This scarcely perceptible avoidance was, however, unnoticed. Zedwitz was too completely wrapt up in admiration, and had eyes and ears for her alone. Weariness prolonged the meal, and twilight was deepening into night before they thought of moving. Madame Rosenberg and Major Stultz said at length that it was time to retire to rest; the others remembered that they intended to make a fire on the top of the hill, and insisted on putting their plan into execution. Major Stultz, afraid to oppose, followed Crescenz; the guides were put in requisition, and in a short time everyone was collecting wood and piling it in a heap. The fire burned brightly, and coloured picturesquely the different members of the party, as they lay dispersed around, some seated on the stumps of trees, others extended on the grass; all weary, yet all interested in their novel situation. Hamilton, apart from the others, looked on without mixing in the careless conversation which was kept up. It was to him like a scene in a play; he understood the double plot, and had decided on making Hildegarde the heroine; but was Zedwitz the hero who, at the end, was to obtain her fair hand? No—unaccountably enough, he found that to suit his plan the old count must be perfectly obdurate. Zedwitz was to give up the affair as hopeless; and Hildegarde! Hildegarde was to—to—remain at home; yes, that would do—an inmate still of her father’s house; and now, unconsciously, Hamilton, from supposing himself a spectator, became, in thought, an actor. He was also in that house. Hildegarde was to become insensibly aware of his good qualities and good looks—was, in fact, to become desperately in love with him! he, all the while, stoically indifferent. A feeling of honour was to make him explain to her, in a most interesting scene, the impossibility of a—she—Crescenz—Zedwitz. Here the party round the fire broke up. The boys had fallen asleep, and were now being carried by the guides to the _châlet_. Madame Rosenberg, Hildegarde, and Crescenz followed; Major Stultz remained to finish his pipe, and the two young men commenced fresh cigars. They did not exchange a word until their companion had left them, when Zedwitz, pitching his cigar into the still glowing embers, asked abruptly,— “Do you know where you are to sleep to-night?” “Not I,” answered Hamilton. “But I do not expect the accommodation to be even tolerable.” “We are to sleep together in a hay-loft.” “I have done that before; and for one night it does not signify; but Major Stultz?”