e not heard in
welcome.

Leoline hastened to her guardian, and the brothers were left alone.

Nothing could be more dissimilar than the features and the respective
characters of Otho and Warbeck. Otho's countenance was flushed with the
brown hues of health; his eyes were of the brightest hazel: his dark
hair wreathed in short curls round his open and fearless brow; the jest
ever echoed on his lips, and his step was bounding as the foot of
the hunter of the Alps. Bold and light was his spirit; if at times he
betrayed the haughty insolence of youth, he felt generously, and though
not ever ready to confess sorrow for a fault, he was at least ready to
brave peril for a friend.

But Warbeck's frame, though of equal strength, was more slender in
its proportions than that of his brother; the fair long hair that
characterized his northern race hung on either side of a countenance
calm and pale, and deeply impressed with thought, even to sadness. His
features, more majestic and regular than Otho's, rarely varied in their
expression. More resolute even than Otho, he was less impetuous; more
impassioned, he was also less capricious.

The brothers remained silent after Leoline had left them. Otho
carelessly braced on his sword, that he had laid aside on the grass; but
Warbeck gathered up the flowers that had been touched by the soft hand
of Leoline, and placed them in his bosom.

The action disturbed Otho; he bit his lip, and changed colour; at length
he said, with a forced laugh,--

"It must be confessed, brother, that you carry your affection for
our fair cousin to a degree that even relationship seems scarcely to
warrant."

"It is true," said Warbeck, calmly; "I love her with a love surpassing
that of blood."

"How!" said Otho, fiercely: "do you dare to think of Leoline as a
bride?"

"Dare!" repeated Warbeck, turning yet paler than his wonted hue.

"Yes, I have said the word! Know, Warbeck, that I, too, love Leoline; I,
too, claim her as my bride; and never, while I can wield a sword, never,
while I wear the spurs of knighthood, will I render my claim to a living
rival,--even," he added, sinking his voice, "though that rival be my
brother!"

Warbeck answered not; his very soul seemed stunned; he gazed long and
wistfully on his brother, and then, turning his face away, ascended the
rock without uttering a single word.

This silence startled Otho. Accustomed to vent every emotion of his own,
he could not comprehen