books with redoubled ardour. Often he addressed me thus with a sigh: 'You are of a dark and haughty character. You shun the society of those who ought to be to you as brothers. But, at all events, you repay the care which I have expended on your education. My sole regret is that my own children do not display your aptitude.' In truth, the pastor's two sons, idolized by their mother, were much less advanced in their studies, though older than myself, and in every class I was uniformly before them. I thought that possibly my unwearied application and success had caused the jealousy and estrangement which I so much regretted. Determined, at whatever price, to regain the pastor's affection, who, doubtless irritated by false reports, became every day colder and colder in his manner towards me; feeling that I never could succeed in accomplishing this object so long as his wife and children retained their hostility, I decided upon allowing the boys to have the advantage over me in our common studies. With this view I designedly committed several gross mistakes, and for the first time in two years the minister's sons were before me in class. Alas! I was cruelly deceived; the triumphs which I rendered so easy of attainment to them did not in the slightest degree alter their disposition towards me."

"Unhappy boy!" cried Madame de Marly, on the contrary, you, perhaps, forfeited the only protector whom heaven had left you."

"Yes, Madame, the minister took for idleness and sloth the secret sacrifice which I had made to his dearest affections. He came at last, he that was so good, so generous! to throw in my teeth the bread which he had given me, the roof with which he had sheltered me; telling me that an idle, ungrateful, and haughty headstrong boy, like me, was unworthy of the slightest interest! Oh! Madame, I will confess to you that for an instant I had the cowardice to be on the point of telling him all, and thus carrying away with me, as my only treasure, the affection of

With a heart

that excellent man. full of bitterness to overflowing, I went to the cemetery of the town; my grief was so profound, that, clasping my hands, and throwing myself on my knees, I cried out, as if my mother could have heard me : "Oh, my mother! how they treat your child!"

"Unfortunate young man!" ejaculated Madame de Marly, raising her eyes towards heaven.

"I wept much, and arose more calm and submissive. The thought of my beloved mother had inspired me with noble sentiments. I blushed for the dishonourable idea which had entered my mind, of unfolding to the minister the unjust and cruel conduct of his family towards me, and thus rendering him miserablehim, to whom I owed every thing; him, who had been made, without being at all aware of it, the instrument of a domestic conspiracy. I preferred to leave him, without causing a single painful emotion in his bosom."

"Noble and generous soul!" cried Madame de Marly, "and what became of one so young?"

66

I was then just sixteen years of age, Madame. The minister, at the moment of parting with me, felt all his old attachment revive, and expressed his strong desire to retain me. I perceived that the causes which now compelled my departure would never cease to exist; I threw myself in his arms for the last time, and then took my leave.

"I went to Vienna. The minister had recommended me to one of his friends, a learned professor in that city.

He employed me as his secretary. He was brusque in his manners, and of a severe disposition. He quite overwhelmed me with employment, but at least I gained a livelihood. As long as I could support these fatigues, I supported them. To satisfy him I laboured with all my strength; indeed, beyond it, for after a lengthened series of the most distressing night-work, I became seriously ill, and was carried to the hospital for the poor. There I remained for a long time. The greatest part of the suffering which I

had to endure consisted in the sort of patronizing familiarity with which I was treated by mendicants of coarse habits, often of criminal disposition. The difference which education had created between us made this association perfectly odious in my eyes. Incapable of escaping from their persecution, and sometimes resenting it, I became the butt of every description of ill-treatment; I was weak and single, and I resigned myself to suffer."

"Poor child!" said Madame de Marly: "There is not a single human grief from which you have been permitted to escape!"

"Still I did not despair. The numerous employments in which I had been engaged during the two years that I remained with the professor, had completed my education, and enlarged my sphere of thought. I believed myself capable of making out a subsistence by dint of mental toil. On leaving the hospital, weak and without means, I returned to the professor who had before employed me. He had engaged another secretary. Then I passed some bitter, bitter days! I became familiar with want; hunger was ever by my side; and I felt all the horror of those dreadful struggles, where necessity urges you to stretch out the hand, and shame restrains you!"

"Oh, my God, even this extremity!" said Madame de Marly, hiding her face with her hands.

"Unable to bring myself to beg, I became a prey to the most gloomy and desperate thoughts, when a happy chance brought me in contact with a friend of the excellent minister by whom I was educated. Through his agency, I obtained a place in one of the offices of the Imperial Chancery, and was thus saved. For some months I was perfectly happy, almost confident as to the future. I employed my leisure hours in perfecting my education, when a new blow struck me. The minister who had so charitably given me an asylum in his house, dying suddenly, left his wife and two sons in absolute penury. Though older than I, and indeed almost men, they were utterly incapable of making any struggle in

the world. One of them enlisted in the army; the other was of a weakly constitution. I took him with his mother into my poor abode. I now occupied my leisure moments in giving instructions in languages and geometry; and I had the good fortune to be useful in my turn to the family of him who had so generously assisted me."

"But that family had treated you with the utmost cruelty."

"I never recalled this to my memory, Madame, except to infuse into my conduct towards them all possible delicacy. I should have regretted nothing more than to suffer these unfortunates to perceive that I was desirous to take advantage of my position to make them repent their former injustice."

"And in this laborious way of life, what pursuits did you engage in to distract you.-I do not speak of pleasures?"

"When my incessant round of labours left me a short interval of repose, I went, during the summer, to take a stroll through the country. But these holidays were indeed rare. Upon the winter nights I read with delight the works of our German poets, and sometimes those of France. I did not complain of my lot. It was obscure and humble, but peaceful and honest. I was proud, indeed, I will confess, very proud at the idea of being able, young and weak as I was, to support two persons, in addition to myself, by my own unassisted labour. Their ardent gratitude repaid me for all my toils; for that poor widow and her son, recognizing all the wrongs which I had previously received at their hands, recompensed me with an abundance of tender acknowledgments. sole regret was that the good minister had possibly in dying retained the most unfavourable impressions against me."

My

"And what came to trouble a life so pure, so nobly and disinterestedly employed?"

"A fatal impulse, with which I now sometimes reproach myself, for it exerted a deplorable influence on the lot of those two poor creatures, whose sole support I was."

Ah, I perceive! was it not then that you became affiliated to a secret society?"

"Yes, Madame. But if I regret the impulse which made me embrace the cause of liberty, because it compromised the means of subsistence of my benefactor's family, I am still, and ever shall be, proud of the convictions which dictated my conduct!" cried Friedrich, his cheeks glowing, and his eye sparkling, with enthusiasm.

"Oh,Madame, if you but knew how noble and holy was the war which we declared against tyranny, and egotism, and intolerance! We desired at once to rescue Germany from the invasion of France, and reclaim and wrest from the antiquated dynasty which ruled over us, those young and vigorous franchises of which your sublime revolution has sown the immortal seeds throughout Europe! Instead of continuing a bloody and fruitless struggle with France, we desired to raise her in arms, in the name of humanity, against the dazzling but disastrous despotism that weighs upon her still –

"Silence! for heaven's sake be careful!" exclaimed Madame de Marly, seized at once with fear and admiration, as she heard Friedrich expound his dangerous doctrines with noble exaltation.

Friedrich, led on in spite of himself by the force of his violent opinions, proceeded without appearing to have noticed Madame de Marly's interruption: "We desired to blot out the last traces of tyranny from the face of the globewe desired to enthrone justice on the ruins of lawless power. Amid shattered thrones and dynasties, we desired to extinguish the reign of destruction and violence. We desired peace, prosperity, and wisely restricted liberty-for the rich we desired less superfluities, for the poor more necessaries. We desired that men should be judged by their acts and their personal worth solely, and that the unjust privileges of birth should be abolished for ever. We desired that in France, as well as in our own country, acting still in concert with the pure spirits that retain

ed their fidelity to the glorious emancipation of 1789, the broken frame of feudalism should not be permitted to rear itself again under a new form. But pardon me, said Friedrich, lowering his voice, and exhibiting an air of graceful timidity, which presented a charming contrast to his momentary exaltation, "pardon me, Madame, these words must wound your ear. It is ungrateful in me to pronounce them before you. I should not forget that I am now in France, and have been received there in a spirit of generous hospitality."

"Know you not," said Madame de Marly, in an excited and rapid tone, "that, in spite of my position at the court of France, I am for the victims against their butchers, for those who suffer against those who revel in their tortures, for meritorious indigence against guilty possession. Know you not further, that my birth, my connexions, my prepossessions, all beget hatred of the military despotism which now bestrides France, and, further still, that I share all your ideas, and sympathize with all your sufferings-poor orphan !"

Madame de Marly pronounced these latter words with so much tenderness, stretching out her beautiful hand to Friedrich, that the latter was on the point of throwing himself on his knees before her. But an insurmountable timidity restrained him. He blushed, cast his eyes on the ground, and relinquished his grasp of Madame de Marly's hand. Then, as if yielding to a sudden excess of emotion, he said in a tone of great embarrassment :

"Pardon me, Madame, for quitting the room so unceremoniously; but a sudden illness-I know not whathas overcome me," and he precipitately left the apartment.

About noon the following day, Friedrich solicited an interview with Madame de Marly, which was readily granted. In a resolute tone, but in a voice which nevertheless occasionally trembled, he communicated to her his unalterable determination to return to his countrymen at Vienna, to participate in their political movements, and above all to seek out the

minister's wife and son, who must be languishing in the last stage of misery, if absolute destitution had not yet terminated their existence.

Madame de Marly heard this resolution with deep emotion. The noble spirit of the young enthusiast, with the utter absence of selfishness which pervaded his mind and conduct, had made a deep-too deep an impression on her heart; and she now for the first time felt the full danger of her position. Friedrich, too, had communed with his heart during the previous night, and the result of his rigid self-examination had contributed in no small degree to the formation of that unalterable resolution which he had announced to Madame de Marly. Duty to a benefactor, and duty to a confiding, though little sympathizing, husband, pointed on both sides to the same prompt, and only efficacious remedy, in entire and perpetual separation.

Not without a severe struggle, and with a deep-drawn sigh, Madame de Marly consented to Friedrich's resolution; and promised to use all her influence with her husband to procure the removal of the legal impediment which opposed the young secretary's return to Vienna.

"I consent to this measure the more readily," she said, "because a piece of intelligence which I have it in my power to communicate to you removes the dangers which would otherwise encircle you on your return, by withdrawing you from the machinations of secret political associations, whose efforts now are hopeless. The Emperor is about to fortify his position by an alliance with your native country; and the Prince of Neufchatel sets out to-morrow to Iwed the Archduchess of Austria in his name."

still," murmured Friedrich: "Those poor unfortunates !”

"The minister's widow and helpless son. Generous boy! Your warm emotions shall be no longer frustrated. I shall go this instant to the councillor, and entreat him to use his influence with the gentlemen of the Prince of Neufchatel's suite to procure the removal of your sentence of proscription. He will not refuse me this favour, and the joyous occasion of the Prince's journey will render the matter easy of attainment.”

Friedrich threw himself on his knees before the divan upon which Madame de Marly was reclining, seized her hand and covered it with kisses. "Ange de ma vie!" he exclaimed; and his emotion was SO violent that he could not utter another word.

The Prince of Neufchatel arrived at Vienna, and was received with all the pomp of an imperial ambassador, approaching an imperial throne. Permission to return to Vienna was readily accorded to the poor student, Friedrich. The accession of strength which these unheard-of nuptials would bring to the Austrian government, rendered the secret machinations of a few discontented spirits a mere feather-weight in the estimation of triumphant statesmanship; and the gratifying intelligence was communicated to Friedrich in the midst of public rejoicings.

At parting, Madame de Marly gave to Friedrich a small locket, little valuable for the thin fragment of gold from which it was plainly wrought, but priceless in his estimation, for it contained a tress of the dark and silken hair which adorned the beautiful head of his benefactress.

Upon his return to Vienna, he found, not without the utmost difficulty, the obscure and miserable abode, in which, destitute of every comfort and of most of the necessaries of life, the minister's widow and child were shivering in the last stage of want and misery.

Friedrich pressed their trembling and emaciated forms to his bosom,