ecause there is something in you which will always prevent you from
feeling at home there. You are surprised to hear me, the jester, the
court warbler, speak thus. I know very well I bear that title; but
believe me, Countess, while they imagine they are playing with me, I am
amusing myself at their expense. You, Countess, will never feel at home
at court. You do not accept that life and its customs, as fixed and
settled. You interpret it according to your own peculiar views; your
mind cannot wear a uniform; your soul utters its deepest feelings in
its own dialect, and when your utterances get abroad in the liveried
world, they find it exceedingly original, but strange and--no one knows
it better than I--you have not, and never will have aught in common
with those who surround you."

"I should not have believed that you could thus look into my heart; but
I thank you."

"I am not looking into your heart; I live in it. Oh, Countess! Oh! thou
child-like and all-loving heart, tremble not! Suffer me to clasp
this hand in mine, while I tell you that I, too, am a stranger there,
and have resolved to retire from court and live for myself on
yonder patrimonial estate of mine. Irma, will you render my life a
thousand-fold happier than it can otherwise be? Will you be my wife?"

It was long before Irma could answer him. At last she said:

"My friend--yes, my friend--on yonder island there lives a friend of
mine who is dead, both to herself and me. Fate deals kindly with
me and sends me another in her stead. I thank you--but--I am so
confused--perhaps more than-- But look, dear baron, at the little
cottage half-way up the mountain. I would be content to live there--to
grow my cabbages, milk my goats, plant my hemp, make my clothes--and
could be happy, desiring nothing, forgetting the world and forgotten by
it."

"You jest, dear Countess; you are creating an idea whose bright colors
will soon grow dim."

"I do not jest. I could live alone while laboring for my daily bread,
but not as the mistress of a castle and surrounded by the trifles and
frippery of the fashionable world. To dress for the mere sake of seeing
one's self in the glass, is not to my taste. In yonder cottage, I could
live without a mirror. I need not look at myself, nor need another look
at me; but if I am to live with the world, I must be wholly with it; at
the reigning center, in the metropolis, or traveling. I must have all
or nothing. Nothing else will make