senses. The latter, too, was wonderfully improved in his appearancc sinee his visit to the world of spirits. His dress was splendid, and set off a noble figure of manly symmetry. He was no longer pale and melancholy. His fine eountenance was flushed with the glow of youth, and joy rioted in his large dark eye.
The mystery was soon cleared up. The cavalier (for, in truth, as you must have known all the while, he was no goblin) announced himself as Sir Herman Von Starkenfaust. He related his adventure with the young eount. He told how he had hastened to the castle to deliver the unwelcome tidings, but that the eloquenee of the baron had interrupted him in every attempt to tell his tale. How the sight of the bride had completely captivated him, and that to pass a few hours near her, he had tacitly suffered the mistake to continue. How he had bcen sorely perplexed in what way to make a decent retreat, until the baron's goblin stories had suggested his eccentrie exit. How, fearing the feudal hostility of the family, he had repeated his visits by stcalth—had haunted the garden beneath the young lady's window-had wooed-had won-had borne away in triumph-and, in a word, had wedded the fair.
Under any other circumstances the baron would have been inflexible, for he was tcnaeious of paternal authority, and devoutly obstinate in all family feuds; but he loved his daughter; he had lamented her as lost; he rejoiced to find her still alive; and, though her husband was of a hostile house, yet, thank heaven, he was not a goblin. There was somcthing, it must be acknowledged, that did not exactly accord with his notions of strict veracity, in the joke the knight had passed upon him of his being a dead man; but several old friends present, who had served in the wars, assured him that every stratagem was excusable in love, and that the eavalier was entitled to especial privilege, having lately served as a trooper.
