On the night in question the concert-room had been thronged, for the two emperors and their suites had condescended to look in for a few moments, and the orchestra had performed the Russian national hymn with great spirit and much applause. The distinguished guests were felt to be still lingering somewhere about the gardens; and moreover the river was illuminated, and was dazzling with lines of fairy lights, from the bridge opposite the Darmstädter Hof to the other bridge at the extreme end of the _Kurgarten_—and of civilisation, of course, in Ems—and beyond the house called the _Vier Thürme_, at which the Russian monarch was lodging. Two barges, brightly illuminated with the imperial crowns and lovingly-entwined initials of Russia and Germany, were floating about the river, while ‘the music’ on board alternately played _Die Wacht am Rhein_ and the Russian national anthem—a spectacle most thrilling and edifying for all loyal souls; if somewhat less enchanting to the musicians and boatmen who perspired in the glare and smell and heat of the lamps, and industriously paddled up and down the little Lahn, below the walls of the broad walk of the _Kurgarten_. Down that broad walk, from the concert-room, came a crowd of the notabilities and otherwise, who had composed the audience; all chattering, laughing, flirting, and intriguing in almost every European tongue. About the middle of the throng came a group of some four or five ladies and gentlemen, and walking a little in advance of the others with one of the men beside her, a tall girl whose accent was English, though she spoke German. Some dark thick trees overhung that part of the walk, making it dark on the side next the river wall; but the lamps cast a bright light upon the girl’s face, and showed its every feature and the play of its expression clearly and distinctly to one who sat on a bench in one of the little recesses in the wall which almost overhung the river; and who from this position had for some time been indifferently watching the brilliant throng as they trooped past. As the girl came on, now looking straight before her, now turning her head to speak to the man, who from the thickness of the crowd was compelled to go just half a pace behind her, the hidden watcher observed her closely and intently. She was tall, well-formed, and well-developed. There was much grace and a great deal of pride in her carriage; her head was habitually carried high, as might easily be seen; her face was very handsome indeed, even splendid, with a brow like Chaucer’s nun: ‘And sickerly she had a fayre forehead, It was almoste a spanne brode, I trow, For hardily she was not undergrowe.’