n a plain knightly costume, and decorated with the sable
scarf of Austria. Black locks hung about his clear forehead, while
power and gentleness spoke out from his large dark eyes, that sparkled
with friendly glances at the handsome widow.

"Am I so fortunate as to greet in you the wife of Henry von Netz?" he
asked, with a dignified inclination to all present, which forced a
similar courtesy from the two wild nobles.

"I was so," replied Althea; and a tear forced itself from her eye.

"Was!" said the stranger,--"and this habit! You are a widow, then?
Heavens! So early has my good Henry gone! and, as the appearance
teaches me, from the bosom of a most happy marriage. That does, indeed,
grieve me!"

"You knew my husband?" asked Althea, drying her eyes.

"Knew him?" rejoined the stranger, in the enthusiasm of
recollection--"We made our first essay in arms together. Has he never
talked to you of Caspar the Sparrenberger, surnamed Tausdorf?"

"Often, and with warm friendship. But he deemed you dead."

"I joined the campaign against the Turks, and lay dangerously wounded
in Transylvania.----That is your son?" he asked, in sudden emotion; and
lifting up the little Henry, he kissed him heartily--"His true eye
betrays the father--."

He set the boy down again, and paced hastily up and down the room to
collect himself.

"We are both too much agitated," he resumed, "to carry on this
conversation any longer. Permit me now to deliver a letter to you,
which your friend Sternberg, of Gitschin, requested me to take with me,
when she understood that I was going to Schweidnitz."

"You know my Thekla, then?"

"We are near neighbours and good friends. My father lives at
Tirschkokrig, not far from Gitschin, and I was frequently with the
Sternberg family. The lady Thekla has talked so much of you, and so
much in your praise, that I knew, before I saw, you."

"I doubt whether she has shown me truly, for friendship is a partial
painter."

"Forgive me if I contradict you. Such, as you now stand before me, has
your beautiful and friendly form long floated before my imagination."

Althea cast down her eyes in confusion; but the little Henry relieved
her from the answer to this embarrassing discourse. He had grown as
weary of the conversation as the two gaping nobles, and now began to
twitch his mother's gown, and teaze for his evening meal; upon which
she said, "Excuse me if I retire for a moment; I will but satisfy the
little t