“What?  Why, she has granted me a blessed moment, in which I can tell you that I love you, boundlessly love you.  Ah! why can I not speak this word aloud, that like a flash of lightning it may flame through this hall?  That would be a fire which should unfold all blossoms and ripen all fruits.  I love you, Charlotte Louise!  I could kneel down here and repeat in strains of perpetual adoration to you, my mistress, my goddess, I love you, I am yours; but, alas! you—­”

“Well,” asked she with a beaming glance—­“well, why do you not complete your sentence?”

“You are not mine,” sighed he.  “Were you so, then you would not answer the words which gush forth hot and ardent from my heart in such strange, cold fashion; then would you listen to my supplications, and grant me a moment’s interview.”

“Did I not tell you, Adolphus,” whispered she, “that you were to meet old Trude on the castle square to-morrow morning early?  She will be the bearer of a message for you.”

“You said so; but I tell you, if you loved me you would not need time for reflection, but even yesterday, as soon as you heard of my arrival, your heart would have suggested the importance of our meeting in private, and devised some scheme whereby this might be accomplished without making use of old Trude’s intervention so late as to-morrow morning.”

Princess Charlotte Louise laughed and blushed at the same time.  “Perhaps I am not so cold and indifferent as you think, Count Adolphus Schwarzenberg,” she said, with a charming expression of bashfulness and coquetry.  “Perhaps I had already reflected that a conference would be desirable, were it only for the purpose of scolding you for your impulsive manners.  Perhaps, too, I already know a place where we can see each other without old Trude’s help.”

“If you speak earnestly, then am I the happiest of men.  But I can not believe you, can not believe that my proud, cold-hearted Princess actually—­”

“Can not believe me!” interrupted she, smiling; “then, unbeliever, I shall convince you.  Attend closely to all that I do.”

She dropped his arm, and pausing before a rare Manilla flower, praised its beauty and perfume.  While doing so, her little hand, accidentally of course, disappeared in the pocket of her ample skirt, and when she drew it forth again this hand was fast closed.  She waited until her sister came up with the court ladies, and drew her attention to the beautiful flower and the aviary of charming birds in the rear.  She then walked forward, in the blissful consciousness that a long time would supervene ere the Princess could tear herself away from the flower and birds, and that she might now speak to her lover secure from being overheard, since a wide space also separated them from the pair in front.

“What have you there in your hand, Louise?” asked the count, in breathless suspense.

“A little note to Count Adolphus von Schwarzenberg,” replied she, smiling, and with swift movement she pressed the little twisted paper into his hand.  His countenance lighted up with rapture, and he made a movement as if he would kneel before her, but the Princess restrained him.