iebenstein.
The castle itself and the demesne that belonged to it passed away from
the female line, and became the heritage of Otho the orphan's cousin,
and the younger of the two brothers now seated on the turf.

"And oh," said the elder, whose name was Warbeck, "you have twined a
chaplet for my brother; have you not, dearest Leoline, a simple flower
for me?"

The beautiful orphan--(for beautiful she was, Gertrude, as the heroine
of the tale you bid me tell ought to be,--should she not have to the
dreams of my fancy your lustrous hair, and your sweet smile, and your
eyes of blue, that are never, never silent? Ah, pardon me that in a
former tale I denied the heroine the beauty of your face, and remember
that, to atone for it, I endowed her with the beauty of your mind)--the
beautiful orphan blushed to her temples, and culling from the flowers
in her lap the freshest of the roses, began weaving them into a wreath
for Warbeck.

"It would be better," said the gay Otho, "to make my sober brother a
chaplet of the rue and cypress; the rose is much too bright a flower
for so serious a knight."

Leoline held up her hand reprovingly.

"Let him laugh, dearest cousin," said Warbeck, gazing passionately on
her changing cheek: "and thou, Leoline, believe that the silent stream
runs the deepest."

At this moment, they heard the voice of the old chief, their father,
calling aloud for Leoline; for ever, when he returned from the chase,
he wanted her gentle presence; and the hall was solitary to him if the
light sound of her step, and the music of her voice, were 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
characterised his northern race hung on either side of a coun