was so kind, so familiar, so confiding, that I was often tempted to imagine that I had an angel by my side.
She made me promise her—“merely for her father’s sake,” said the sly hussy—not to leave them in the morning, and then she became once more the lively romp, all fun and frolic. I suppose I had ventured a step beyond the line, for I cannot recollect exactly what I had done, owing to the powerful effect of the wine I had taken, when she caught hold of both my hands, pressed them to her bosom, and said, in a tone that might have melted the everlasting mountains which towered above us, “Don’t behave so; I am but a weak girl, and you are a strong man, with whom my father has trusted his maiden.” Throwing her left arm round me, she pressed the Iron Cross to her lips with the right, as the superstitious, when in imminent danger, would an amulet. It would be impossible to express how much the self-denial cost me: I sat upon the granite seat like St. Laurence on his gridiron.
It was not till this moment that I was aware what an insurmountable bar the old man had placed before me with his cross.
In this manner we chatted for about a couple of hours, enveloped in the mantle of night, and then returned home. Mimili conducted me to my chamber, but I felt not the least inclination to sleep. Taking the candle in my hand, I
