But what a world of thoughts now flew at once into Albano's mind! "He continues to torment himself," thought he, "with the old jealousy about Romeiro. I will open heart to heart, and tell the good brother that it is indeed his sister I love, and that eternally." His cheeks glowed, his heart flamed, he stood, priest-like, before the altar of friendship, with the fairest offering, sincerity. "O Charles," said he, "now, perhaps, she might be otherwise disposed towards thee. My father is travelling with her, and thou wilt see her." He took his hand, and went with him more quickly up to a dark group of trees, to unfold, in the shadow, his tenderly blushing soul. "Take my most precious secret," he began, "but speak not of it,--not even with me. Dost thou not guess it, my first brother? The soul that I have loved, as long as I have loved thee?"--softly, very softly he added,--"thy sister?" and sank on his lips to kiss away the first sounds. But Charles, in the tumult of rapture and of love, like an earth at the up-coming of Spring, could not contain himself; he pressed him to himself; he let him go; he embraced him again; he wept for bliss; he shut to Albano's eyes, and said, as if he had found his sister anew, "Brother!" In vain did Albano seek to stifle, with his hand, every other syllable on his lips. He began to paint to the excited youth--who, amid the secluded and poetic book-world, had acquired a higher tenderness than the actual intercourse of society teaches--the portrait of Liana; how she did and suffered; how she watched and pleaded for him, and even impoverished herself to wipe out his debts; how she never severely blamed, but only mildly entreated him, and all that, not from artificial patience, but from genuine, ardent love; and how this, after all, made up hardly the accessories of her picture. In this purer inspiration than the foregoing evening had granted him, what crowned his bliss was, that he could love his sister, among all beings, the most intensely and the most disinterestedly, and with a love the most free from poetic luxury and caprice. Really strengthened by the feeling that he could, for once, exult with a pure and holy affection, he lifted once more in freedom his disengaged hands, hitherto, like Milo's, jammed and caught in the tree of happiness and life, which he would fain have torn open; he breathed fresh, living air and courage, and the plan of his inner perfection was now gracefully rounded by new good fortune and a consciousness full of fair objects. The moon stood high in heaven, the clouds had been driven away, and never did the morning-star rise brighter on two human beings. FOOTNOTES: