sound well from your lips.
What has become of your companion?'

'On our way back, he offered me a wager,' said Christine, laughing, 'as
to which of us would be first at Gyllensten; I gave my horse a loose
rein, and have not seen the good colonel since.'

'You ought to have been a Cossack,' said the old man chidingly; and at
that moment a Swedish officer entered the now darkening hall.

'Megret!' exclaimed Arwed with amazement.

'You have lost, colonel!' cried Christine, to the new comer.

'A second Thalestris,' answered Megret, gallantly kissing her hand. 'I
yield myself in disgrace to your mercy. Once have I ridden with you
upon a wager, but never will I again! Though, at all events, I know how
to ride, I have never yet learned to fly.'

'I have the pleasure to present my nephew to you, colonel,' said the
governor, interrupting them.

'What a happy encounter!' said Megret, pretending to derive much
pleasure from the meeting, and embracing the youth. 'How delightful it
is to me, to greet my dear brother in arms, in a kinsman of this dear
family!'

A sensation of the deepest disgust oppressed Arwed's bosom at the
embrace of the insincere and suspected man. He could not so far control
himself as to repay the dissembler in the same coin, and only answered
with a silent bow.

'As we shall probably have the pleasure of seeing you here for a long
time, my worthy friend,' said Megret, jestingly, and familiarly
pointing to Christine, 'you will consider it the friendly service of a
true knight when I warn you against this lady.'

'How so?' asked Arwed, and Christine satirically added, 'the colonel
probably wishes to inform you, how inexhaustible is his fund of sweet
phrases, which mean nothing and which he himself does not believe.'

'How beautiful she is,' continued Megret gaily, 'I need not remark to a
blooming youth like you. Her mind, nourished by the manna of the old
classics, is a giant that would find its pleasure in storming heaven,
and yet she does not lack the graces. Whenever she is in the humor to
be amiable, she is irresistible. In short she has every quality
requisite to set a man's heart in a flame, and yet I advise every brave
man to guard against her, watchfully, as against something which is at
the same time the most beautiful and dangerous in all the three
kingdoms of nature,--for one all-important quality she lacks!'

'Now this is enough!' suddenly exclaimed Christine, in a tone of great
irrita