a gentleman. That is what we can say of you at present, as
you appear in the world's eye. And you are by descent illustrious. Well,
no more of that, but consider if you kneel down, who will decline to
put a foot on you? Princes have the habit, and they do it as a matter of
course. Challenge them. And they, Richie, are particularly susceptible
to pity for the misfortunes of their class--kind, I should say, for
class it is not; now I have done. All I tell you is, I intend you, under
my guidance, to be happy.'

I thought his remarks the acutest worldly wisdom I had ever heard,--his
veiled method of treating my case the shrewdest, delicatest, and most
consoling, most inspiring. It had something of the mystical power of the
Oracles,--the power which belongs to anonymous writing. Had he disposed
of my apparent rival, and exalted me to the level of a princely family,
in open speech, he would have conveyed no balm to me--I should have
classed it as one confident man's opinion. Disguised and vague,
but emphatic, and interpreted by the fine beam of his eye, it was
intoxicating; and when he said subsequently, 'Our majority Burgundy was
good emperor wine, Richie. You approved it? I laid that vintage down to
give you a lesson to show you that my plans come safe to maturity,'--I
credited him with a large share of foresight, though I well knew
his habit of antedating his sagacity, and could not but smile at the
illustration of it.

You perceive my state without rendering it necessary for me to label
myself.

I saw her next in a pinewood between Ischl and the Traun. I had climbed
the steep hill alone, while my father and Mr. Peterborough drove round
the carriage-road to the margravine's white villa. Ottilia was leaning
on the arm of Baroness Turckems, walking--a miracle that disentangled
her cruelly from my net of fancies. The baroness placed a second hand
upon her as soon as I was seen standing in the path. Ottilia's face
coloured like the cyclamen at her feet.

'You!' she said.

'I might ask, is it you, princess?'

'Some wonder has been worked, you see.'

'I thank heaven.'

'You had a part in it.'

'The poorest possible.'

'Yet I shall presume to call you Doctor Oceanus,'

'Will you repeat his medicine? The yacht awaits you always.'

'When I am well I study. Do not you?'

'I have never studied in my life.'

'Ah, lose no more time. The yacht is delicious idleness, but it is
idleness. I am longing for it now, I am st