his own writing, to
airs of his own composition, accompanied on his guitar; he told her
tales of strange lands that he had visited, of cavalry skirmishes in
which he had participated, sketched her favorite scenes in pencil, and
offered to teach her the newest dances in vogue at Vienna. He was a
dangerous companion to a young girl whose imagination needed but a
spark to kindle it, and for a time she indulged in the wild hope that
she had made a conquest of Rudolph. But then her reason told her, that
even if he loved her, it would be impossible for a young man of family
to offer his hand to an almost portionless girl, about whose origin a
veil of mystery seemed wrapped. The names of her parents, even, had
never been disclosed to her, by the lips of probably the only man who
knew her history, and those lips were now cold and mute in death.
Hence the little gleam of sunshine which had for a moment penetrated
her heart was speedily quenched in a deeper darkness than that which
reigned in it before, and she could not help viewing the visit of
Rudolph as an ominous event.

One morning, she was witness to a scene which dashed out the last
faint glimmering of hope. They were all seated at a huge oaken table,
from which the servants had just removed the apparatus of the morning
meal.

"Rudolph," said the baron, after lighting his pipe,--an operation of
great solemnity and deliberation, and taking a few whiffs to make sure
that its contents were duly ignited,--"Rudolph, do you know why I sent
for you to Rosenburg?"

"Why, sir," replied the hussar, "I suppose it was because you really
have a sort of regard for an idle, good-for-nothing fellow, whose
redeeming quality is an attachment to a very kind old uncle, and whose
nonsense and good spirits are perhaps a partial compensation for the
trouble he gives every body in this tumble-down old castle."

"Tumble-down old castle!" exclaimed the baron, in high dudgeon, the
latter part of the soldier's speech cancelling the former; "why, you
jackanapes, it will stand for centuries. It resisted the cannon of
Napoleon, and it bids defiance to the battering of time. Yes, sir,
Rosenburg will stand long after your great-great-grandchildren are
superannuated."

"I am not likely to be blessed in the way you hint at, uncle," said
the soldier, carelessly. "I am likely, for aught I see, to die a
bachelor."

"Nonsense!" said the baron. "What's to become of your family name? Do
you think I wil