THE BETROTHED.
A TALE OF THE TIMES OF MARIA THERESA.
BY L. E. L.
The empress and her daughter stood together: alike, singularly alike, as they were, in height, in the same high, finely-cut features, the same clear blue eyes, the same fair Saxon complexion, yet the likeness, which seemed so strong at the first look, became almost a contrast as that look was prolonged into observation. It was not the difference of age, for the mother's eye was as bright, and her cheek as rich in colour, as her daughter's; but the sweetness which was in Maria Theresa's smile only, was in every line of the archduchess's face. The azure depths of the eyes, in the one, mirrored every thought and every feeling; those of the other expressed but what they chose should appear. Each had the same fair broad forehead; but in the elder one a slight contraction of the brow had become habitual. Both stepped with the stately bearing of a noble race; but Maria Theresa moved as if over
