"Your generosity," continued Edward, "and your affectionate benevolence have brought up a poor orphan girl; you have behaved like a father to her; and her fate must therefore be decided by you and none else. Give me that dear maiden, give me Rose for my wife, and I will live and die on this mountain, without a wish beyond it." The old man's face suddenly darkened and put on an expression which might be called terrific. He started up hastily, walkt several times up and down the room, then sat down again sighing, and began in a bitter tone: "So! this is it! You are in love! Is it not so? I am doomed again to hear this ill-omened, this calamitous word! I am doomed to witness this frenzy, this dark, heart-rending, heart-sickening absurdity, even in you, in a man of your sense! And all, all that one might otherwise esteem, and look upon as reasonable, is swallowed up in this whirlpool, in which horrour, madness, wild passions, carnal lust, and capricious folly are frothing and boiling all at once. This marriage however, Edward, can never, never be." "I have said too much," answered Edward calmly, "to be satisfied with a bare refusal. Tell me what are your plans for the dear girl, and I shall learn to bear them with resignation." "And she, the little fool!" interposed the old man hastily, "has she too tumbled in love with you? Has the luckless word already past to and fro betwixt you?" "No," replied Edward; "her pure youth is still hovering in that happy state of simplicity, which only desires that tomorrow may be just like today and yesterday. She has no wishes but the simple ones of a child." "So much the better," said Balthasar; "she will be ready to act rationally then, and will not throw any hinderance in the way of my plan. Surely you, who are tolerably well acquainted with me, ought to have perceived long ago that I had designed the child for Eleazar. I mean her to marry, to live in sober wedlock, not to dream away and dote in what you call love." "And will she," askt Edward, "be happy with him for her husband?"