dressed me--'you rang the bell, you!'

'To repair your error, baroness,' said my father.

'I have my conscience pure; have you?' she retorted.

He bowed and said, 'The fire will also excuse your presence on the spot,
baroness.'

'I thank my God I am not so cool as you,' said she.

'Your warmth'--he bent to her--'shall always be your apology, baroness.'

Seeing the curtains extinguished, Ottilia withdrew. She gave me no
glance.

All this occurred before the night-porter, who was going his rounds,
could reach the library. Lacqueys and maids were soon at his heels. My
father met Prince Ernest with a florid story of a reckless student,
either asleep or too anxious to secure a particular volume, and showed
his usual consideration by not asking me to verify the narrative. With
that, and with high praise of Peterborough, as to whose gallantry I heard
him deliver a very circumstantial account, he, I suppose, satisfied the
prince's curiosity, and appeased him, the damage being small compared
with the uproar. Prince Ernest questioned two or three times, 'What set
him ringing so furiously?' My father made some reply.

Ottilia's cloud-pale windows were the sole greeting I had from her on my
departure early next morning, far wretcheder than if I had encountered a
misfortune. It was impossible for me to deny that my father had shielded
the princess: she would never have run for a menace. As he remarked, the
ringing of the bell would not of itself have forced her to retreat, and
the nature of the baroness's alarm demanded nothing less than a
conflagration to account for it to the household. But I felt humiliated
on Ottilia's behalf, and enraged on my own. And I had, I must confess, a
touch of fear of a man who could unhesitatingly go to extremities, as he
had done, by summoning fire to the rescue. He assured me that moments
such as those inspired him and were the pride of his life, and he was
convinced that, upon reflection, 'I should rise to his pitch.' He deluded
himself with the idea of his having foiled Baroness Turckems, nor did I
choose to contest it, though it struck me that she was too conclusively
the foiler. She must have intercepted the letter for the princess. I
remembered acting carelessly in handing it to my father for him to
consign it to one of the domestics, and he passed it on with a flourish.
Her place of concealment was singularly well selected under the
sofa-cover, and the little heaps of paper-bound volum