She bent down to him with an expression of unutterable love, and their bright eyes met in a tender glance.  They formed a beautiful picture, those two youthful figures combining in so lovely a group.  She, bending over him with a look brimful of love, he gazing up at her with animated, radiant eyes.  The full light of the wax candles in the silver chandelier illuminated his countenance, and Ludovicka looked down upon him with a smile as blissful as if she had now seen him for the first time.

“You are handsome,” she whispered, softly, while with her white hand she stroked his dark-brown hair, which fell in long waving curls, like the mane of a lion, over both powerful shoulders.  “Yes, you are handsome,” she smilingly repeated, and playfully passed her hand over his features, over the lofty, thoughtful brow, the energetic, slightly prominent, aquiline nose, over the full glowing lips, which breathed an ardent kiss upon the hand that glided past.

“Now let me look into your eyes and see what is written in them,” continued Ludovicka, and she stooped lower over the kneeling youth, and looked long into those large, dark-blue eyes, which gazed up at her, lustrous and bright as two twinkling stars.

“Have you read what is in my eyes?” he asked, after a long pause, in which only their glances and their beating hearts had spoken to one another.  “Have you read it, my Ludovicka?”

With a charmingly pouting expression she shook her head.  “No,” said she sadly, “I can not read it, or perhaps there is nothing in them, or at least nothing for me!”

He jumped up, and, throwing his arms around her neck, leaned his face close against hers, flashed his burning glance deep into her eyes, and in doing so smiled a blissful, childlike smile.

“Now read,” he said, almost imperiously—­“read and tell me what is in my eyes!”

She slowly shook her head.  “There is nothing in them,” she whispered.  “But, indeed, how can I know?  The Electoral Prince Frederick William is so very learned, and it is only my own fault that I can not read what is in his eyes.  It is written in Latin, or perhaps in Greek!”

“No, you mischievous, you cruel one,” cried he impatiently.  “You just will not understand and read what is plainly and intelligibly written in my eyes.  My heart speaks neither Latin nor Greek, but German, and the eyes are the lips with which the heart speaks.”

“Well then, tell me, Cousin Frederick William, what is in your eyes?”

“I will tell you, Cousin Ludovicka Hollandine.  They say:  I love you!  I love you!  And nothing but I love you!”

“But whom?  To whom are these three little words addressed?”

“To you, you heartless, you wicked one, to you are these words addressed.  But not little words are they, as you say; they are great words, full of meaning:  for a world, a whole human life, my whole future, lies in these three words—­I love you.”