Were there, then, no exceptions to this condition of awestruck admiration?  Yes; one at least there was in whose bosom the spell of all-conquering passion soon thawed every trace of icy reserve.  While the rest of the world retained a dim sentiment of awe toward Mr. Wyndham, Margaret Liebenheim only heard of such a feeling to wonder that it could exist toward him.  Never was there so victorious a conquest interchanged between two youthful hearts—­ never before such a rapture of instantaneous sympathy.  I did not witness the first meeting of this mysterious Maximilian and this magnificent Margaret, and do not know whether Margaret manifested that trepidation and embarrassment which distressed so many of her youthful co-rivals; but, if she did, it must have fled before the first glance of the young man’s eye, which would interpret, past all misunderstanding, the homage of his soul and the surrender of his heart.  Their third meeting I did see; and there all shadow of embarrassment had vanished, except, indeed, of that delicate embarrassment which clings to impassioned admiration.  On the part of Margaret, it seemed as if a new world had dawned upon her that she had not so much as suspected among the capacities of human experience.  Like some bird she seemed, with powers unexercised for soaring and flying, not understood even as yet, and that never until now had found an element of air capable of sustaining her wings, or tempting her to put forth her buoyant instincts.  He, on the other hand, now first found the realization of his dreams, and for a mere possibility which he had long too deeply contemplated, fearing, however, that in his own case it might prove a chimera, or that he might never meet a woman answering the demands of his heart, he now found a corresponding reality that left nothing to seek.

Here, then, and thus far, nothing but happiness had resulted from the new arrangement.  But, if this had been little anticipated by many, far less had I, for my part, anticipated the unhappy revolution which was wrought in the whole nature of Ferdinand von Harrelstein.  He was the son of a German baron; a man of good family, but of small estate who had been pretty nearly a soldier of fortune in the Prussian service, and had, late in life, won sufficient favor with the king and other military superiors, to have an early prospect of obtaining a commission, under flattering auspices, for this only son—­a son endeared to him as the companion of unprosperous years, and as a dutifully affectionate child.  Ferdinand had yet another hold upon his father’s affections:  his features preserved to the baron’s unclouded remembrance a most faithful and living memorial of that angelic wife who had died in giving birth to this third child—­the only one who had long survived her.  Anxious that his son should go through a regular course of mathematical instruction, now becoming annually more important in all the artillery services throughout Europe, and that he should receive