The Electress did not withdraw her persevering gaze, though she ceased her whispers, for the Emperor and Empress approached from the house. The Duke de Ripperda was instantly engaged with the Imperial pair; and soon after Charles, putting his arm through his, turned with him to the opposite side of the lawn. As Elizabeth was passing Louis, to give her hand to the Dowager Empress, who wished to view the scene from the palace windows, she desired him to offer his arm to the venerable Princess. He hastened to bear his share in supporting the infirm footsteps of old age; a duty, which, to all ranks, was sacred with him; and during the walk, as the aged Empress was deaf, Elizabeth informed him, that the Arch-Duchess Maria Theresa being suddenly indisposed, the Countess Altheim attended her. "But," added the gracious speaker, "hope is the lover's comforter!" She thought it was the ruby light of love that passed over the cheek of Louis, as she spoke; and she smiled as she placed the Empress in her chair, and dismissed him to the lawn. Trying to shake from his burning complexion, the evidence of his weakness, with a swift step he returned towards the platform. Wharton stood there, though the Electress had moved into the more general circle of the company. The Duke was talking with two or three persons, amongst whom was the Count Leopold Koninseg, a colonel in the Austrian service, and the nephew of the Princess de Waradin, a Hungarian lady, to whom Ripperda had presented his son in the morning at the drawing-room. As Louis was hastening to the group that contained his friend, and his new acquaintance, the Princess de Waradin, leading a blooming girl of fifteen by the hand, interrupted him. The noble matron asked him if he had yet engaged himself for the dance. On his answering in the negative, she presented him to her daughter, with the compliment, "that there was no person with whom she should be so satisfied to see her Amelia make her first public appearance at court, as the son of the Duke de Ripperda."