“And oh,” said the elder, whose name was Warbeck, “you have twined a chaplet for my brother; have you not, dearest Leoline, a simple flower for me?” The beautiful orphan (for beautiful she was, Gertrude, as the heroine of the tale you bid me tell ought to be,--should she not have to the dreams of my fancy your lustrous hair, and your sweet smile, and your eyes of blue, that are never, never silent? Ah, pardon me, that in a former tale, I denied the heroine the beauty of your face, and remember that to atone for it, I endowed her with the beauty of your mind)--the beautiful orphan blushed to her temples, and culling from the flowers in her lap the freshest of the roses, began weaving them into a wreath for Warbeck. “It would be better,” said the gay Otho, “to make my sober brother a chaplet of the rue and cypress; the rose is much too bright a flower for so serious a knight.” Leoline held up her hand reprovingly. “Let him laugh, dearest cousin,” said Warbeck, gazing passionately on her changing cheek; “and thou, Leoline, believe that the silent stream runs the deepest.” At this moment, they heard the voice of the old chief, their father, calling aloud for Leoline; for ever when he returned from the chase he wanted her gentle presence; and the hall was solitary to him if the light sound of her step and the music of her voice were not heard in welcome. Leoline hastened to her guardian, and the brothers were left alone. Nothing could be more dissimilar than the features and the respective characters of Otho and Warbeck. Otho’s countenance was flushed with the brown hues of health; his eyes were of the brightest hazel: his dark hair wreathed in short curls round his open and fearless brow; the jest ever echoed on his lips, and his step was bounding as the foot of the hunter of the Alps. Bold and light was his spirit; if at times he betrayed the haughty insolence of youth, he felt generously, and though not ever ready to confess sorrow for a fault, he was at least ready to brave peril for a friend. But Warbeck’s frame, though of equal strength, was more slender in its proportions than that of his brother; the fair long hair that characterized his northern race hung on either side of a countenance calm and pale, and deeply impressed with thought, even to sadness. His features, more majestic and regular than Otho’s, rarely varied in their expression. More resolute even than Otho, he was less impetuous; more impassioned, he was also less capricious. The brothers remained silent after Leoline had left them. Otho carelessly braced on his sword, that he had laid aside on the grass; but Warbeck gathered up the flowers that had been touched by the soft hand of Leoline, and placed them in his bosom. The action disturbed Otho; he bit his lip, and changed colour; at length he said, with a forced laugh,-- “It must be confessed, brother, that you carry your affection for our fair cousin to a degree that even relationship seems scarcely to warrant.”