are some who have a strong personal regard for
you?"

"I have done what my own feelings prompted," said Anton; "perhaps one
older and more experienced might have managed better; but you can not
blame me for not taking _your_ advice in this matter."

"It is singular," thought Fink, as he went down stairs, "what different
events teach different men to have and exert wills of their own. This
boy has become independent in one night, and whatever Fate may now have
in store for him, he is sure to acquit himself well."

It spoke highly, both for Anton and his friend, that their intimacy was
by no means decreased by the circumstances just related. On the
contrary, it was deepened. Fink behaved with more consideration, and
Anton gained more freedom, both of opinion and action. The influence of
the younger of the friends weaned the elder from many an evil habit.
Anton being more than ever zealous in his office duties, and more
obliging to his colleagues, Fink insensibly accustomed himself to
greater application and punctuality. There was only one subject that he
never touched upon, though he well knew that it was always uppermost in
Anton's mind, and that was the lovely young girl who had shown so much
heart and spirit on the occasion of his last dancing-lesson.

CHAPTER XII.

Never had the flowers bloomed so gorgeously, never had the birds sung so
gayly, as they did this summer on the baron's estate. The season spent
in town had greatly extended the family acquaintance, and the castle
was, in consequence, almost always full of guests. Dances, rides, acted
charades, amusements of every kind, filled up the laughing hours.

What happy days these were to Lenore! True, she still remained something
of an original, and her mother would at times shake her head at some
daring freak or over-emphatic speech. It came naturally to her to play
the gentleman's part whenever there was a lack of gentlemen. She was the
leader in every expedition, delighting to carry off all her young female
friends to some distant spot whence there was a fine view, to force them
into some little village inn, where they had only milk and black bread
for supper, and then to carry them all home dead-tired in a wagon, which
she herself would drive standing. She had a way of treating young men
with a sort of motherly kindness, as though they were still little
bread-and-butter-eating urchins; and on the occasion of a certain
dramatic representation, she h