FRANCIS. Oh, Amelia! how I love you for this unshaken constancy to my brother. Forgive me for venturing to subject your love to so severe a trial! How nobly you have realized my wishes! By those tears, those sighs, that divine indignation--and for me too, for me--our souls did so truly harmonize. AMELIA. Oh, no! that they never did! FRANCIS. Alas! they harmonized so truly that I always thought we must be twins. And were it not for that unfortunate difference in person, to be twin-like, which, it must be admitted, would be to the disadvantage of Charles, we should again and again be mistaken for each other. Thou art, I often said to myself, thou art the very Charles, his echo, his counterpart. AMELIA (shakes her head). No, no! by that chaste light of heaven! not an atom of him, not the least spark of his soul. FRANCIS. So entirely the same in our dispositions; the rose was his favorite flower, and what flower do I esteem above the rose? He loved music beyond expression; and ye are witnesses, ye stars! how often you have listened to me playing on the harpsichord in the dead silence of night, when all around lay buried in darkness and slumber; and how is it possible for you, Amelia, still to doubt? if our love meets in one perfection, and if it is the self-same love, how can its fruits degenerate? (AMELIA looks at him with astonishment.) It was a calm, serene evening, the last before his departure for Leipzic, when he took me with him to the bower where you so often sat together in dreams of love,--we were long speechless; at last he seized my hand, and said, in a low voice, and with tears in his eyes, "I am leaving Amelia; I know not, but I have a sad presentiment that it is forever; forsake her not, brother; be her friend, her Charles--if Charles--should never--never return." (He throws himself down before her, and kisses her hand with fervor.) Never, never, never will he return; and I stand pledged by a sacred oath to fulfil his behest! AMELIA (starting back). Traitor! Now thou art unmasked! In that very bower he conjured me, if he died, to admit no other love. Dost thou see how impious, how execrable----. Quit my sight! FRANCIS. You know me not, Amelia; you do not know me in the least! AMELIA. Oh, yes, I know you; from henceforth I know you; and you pretend to be like him? You mean to say that he wept for me in your presence? Yours? He would sooner have inscribed my name on the pillory? Begone--this instant! FRANCIS. You insult me. AMELIA. Go--I say. You have robbed me of a precious hour; may it be deducted from your life. FRANCIS. You hate me then! AMELIA. I despise you--away! FRANCIS (stamping with fury). Only wait! you shall learn to tremble before me!--To sacrifice me for a beggar! [Exit in anger.]