care a stiver for me, and if she does not I must wish her farewell
and try to forget her charms."

Just as he had arrived at this wise resolution the door opened, and the
steward reappeared with a violin in his hand, followed by a servant
bringing a very respectable supper.

"Thank you, my friend, thank you," said the Count, getting up; "I should
be happy to show you my gratitude at once by playing a tune, but I think
that I shall play with more spirit after I have partaken of this food,
for, as you may suppose, I am pretty well starved."

"I shall be happy to await your pleasure," said the steward, who was
struck by the Count's polite manner, and lifting up the dish-covers he
helped him liberally to the contents of the dishes. The Count,
considering all things, did ample justice to the meal set before him, as
well as to a bottle of Rhenish wine.

"I might have been worse off," he observed, greatly revived. "And now
you shall have a tune."

Whereon, taking the fiddle and screwing up the keys, he began to play in
a way which astonished the Friesian steward.

"Really, you are a master of the art, Mynheer," he observed. "Such
notes have never before proceeded from that violin."

"I am happy to please you," answered the Count, "And now I must beg you,
as soon as your master returns, to request that he will either set me at
liberty and have me conveyed safely back to my hotel, or else give me
better accommodation than this vault offers for the night."

The steward faithfully promised to carry out the Count's wishes, and,
observing that he had duties to attend to, took his leave. The Count
then, resuming his violin, once more began to play; the tunes he chose
were such as especially suited his present feelings; they were of a
gentle, pathetic character, often mournful and touching. He played on
and on. Little was he aware who was listening to them. Could he have
looked through the thick walls of his dungeon, he would have beheld a
female form, her handkerchief to her eyes, leaning on the parapet of a
terrace which ran along one of its sides. The lady whose tender
feelings he had excited was no other than Isabelle Van Arent, who, with
her sister and father and mother, had come that afternoon to pay a visit
to Mynheer Bunckum. At length the Count ceased playing, and the lady
tore herself away from the spot to rejoin her family, to whom she could
not refrain from speaking of the pathetic music to which she had b