The ex-queen had also a daughter, now twelve years of age; his fairy sister, Adrian was wont to call her; a lovely, animated, little thing, all sensibility and truth.  With these, her children, the noble widow constantly resided at Windsor; and admitted no visitors, except her own partizans, travellers from her native Germany, and a few of the foreign ministers.  Among these, and highly distinguished by her, was Prince Zaimi, ambassador to England from the free States of Greece; and his daughter, the young Princess Evadne, passed much of her time at Windsor Castle.  In company with this sprightly and clever Greek girl, the Countess would relax from her usual state.  Her views with regard to her own children, placed all her words and actions relative to them under restraint:  but Evadne was a plaything she could in no way fear; nor were her talents and vivacity slight alleviations to the monotony of the Countess’s life.

Evadne was eighteen years of age.  Although they spent much time together at Windsor, the extreme youth of Adrian prevented any suspicion as to the nature of their intercourse.  But he was ardent and tender of heart beyond the common nature of man, and had already learnt to love, while the beauteous Greek smiled benignantly on the boy.  It was strange to me, who, though older than Adrian, had never loved, to witness the whole heart’s sacrifice of my friend.  There was neither jealousy, inquietude, or mistrust in his sentiment; it was devotion and faith.  His life was swallowed up in the existence of his beloved; and his heart beat only in unison with the pulsations that vivified hers.  This was the secret law of his life—­he loved and was beloved.  The universe was to him a dwelling, to inhabit with his chosen one; and not either a scheme of society or an enchainment of events, that could impart to him either happiness or misery.  What, though life and the system of social intercourse were a wilderness, a tiger-haunted jungle!  Through the midst of its errors, in the depths of its savage recesses, there was a disentangled and flowery pathway, through which they might journey in safety and delight.  Their track would be like the passage of the Red Sea, which they might traverse with unwet feet, though a wall of destruction were impending on either side.

Alas! why must I record the hapless delusion of this matchless specimen of humanity?  What is there in our nature that is for ever urging us on towards pain and misery?  We are not formed for enjoyment; and, however we may be attuned to the reception of pleasureable emotion, disappointment is the never-failing pilot of our life’s bark, and ruthlessly carries us on to the shoals.  Who was better framed than this highly-gifted youth to love and be beloved, and to reap unalienable joy from an unblamed passion?  If his heart had slept but a few years longer, he might have been saved; but it awoke in its infancy; it had power, but no knowledge; and it was ruined, even as a too early-blowing bud is nipt by the killing frost.