"Speak better and more propitious words," said Dian. "Hail to us; the gods are already favorable! Yonder comes your father up the palace hill, and looks more gay and happy than I ever before happened to find him!" THIRTY-FIRST JUBILEE. Pestitz.--Schoppe.--Dread of Marriage.--Arcadia.-- Idoine.--Entanglement. 120. CYCLE. Gaspard received his son with the usual stately coldness of the first hour, as letters begin more coldly than they end. Not until this morning-frost had melted away and it grew warmer around him, did Albano disclose to him, without fear or pusillanimous blushing, and with matured manliness, the bond which he had forever concluded with Linda and with himself, and begged him for the third yes. "So after all," replied the Knight, "the old enchanter has carried it through at last; of course under the reinforcement of a young enchantress. That I shall never disturb thee in anything which thou seizest upon with whole soul and forever, that thou knowest already from a similar case in the last year." Albano grew red at the bitter mention of his first love, but had gained strength within a half-year to preserve a manly silence, in cases where he once spoke out like a youth. Gaspard, more glad and warm than usual towards him to-day, nevertheless went on, when he perceived his sensitiveness: "I pronounce it good! As the seal-engraver in the beginning stamps the arms in wax, and then, and not till then, etches them on the precious stone, so does man essay to impress his upon more than one heart, until he at last gets the firmest. It must be owned thou hast not made the worst choice in my ward, and I gladly give my word of assent to it." Albano pressed the hand which drew the sweet knot of love still tighter, and said, in the entrancement of gratitude: "I found my sister, too, the Princess. I put no question to her, however, as lately, but count upon time." "Mocker!" said Gaspard, and assumed, seemingly by way of cooling him off, the cruel appearance of thinking his pure, noble son had been disposed to retort upon him the bantering allusion to having many love-affairs. "Only be silent about all in thy innermost heart, as I myself have hitherto been, and conceal thy knowledge from the court. Give me thy word of honor." Albano said he had already given it to Julienne also. He was, however, driven back, by Gaspard's whole deportment, upon conclusions which placed moral garlands neither upon his father nor upon Julienne's mother.