affection did not rally it.-No ingenuity, thought she, can warp this tale to my credit, and if Wolfstein relates it, it will have every addition that malice can afford it. She resolved to confide her weakness to the sympathy of the Empress, and to enable herself, in that quarter at least, to defy the enemy: nor did she misplace her confidence; they wept together over the hurried farewell of poor Casimir, and the Empress repeated with pleasure and wonder the words, "I go forth laden with sorrows and iniquities, but only half the burthen is my own." To whom then might the other half appertain? That was a question to whose solution their mutual penetration was unequal.

"One thing, however," said the Empress, "is clear and manifest; the breast which harboured the generous, tender sentiments expressed in that letter, could never lend room to a dark, implacable spirit of wrath towards the author of his being the unhappy mystery may be

long in developing, but whenever it comes to light, the honour of Casimir Vallensteïn will be justified."

Unfortunately, as Princess Stolberg now found it, when Wolfstein first made his appearance at court, in all the pride of his audacious singularity, she, carried away by high spirits and vanity, and pleased to find herself the exclusive theme of his warbled flatteries, allowed him in return for this seductive homage a degree of familiarity for which those who envied her the fragrant incense which burned upon her altar were eager to censure and condemn her. It was a league, however, in which vanity alone was concerned:-she loved to hear her self flattered in such incomparable strains, and he delighted in being told by so lovely and brilliant a woman that the strains were incomparable. They were almost constantly inseparable, not because each had any real attachment to the other, but because each loved

and admired themselves.

This tacit

compact, however, gradually relaxed, for the Princess, on her side, felt herself revolted, in spite of fashion, by some of the daring impieties of her colleague: while he, naturally fickle, wearied even of the piquante Princess, began, for the love of variety, to enlist his transcendant muse in the celebration of less conspicuous charms.-It was true, besides, that the unqualified and monotonous applause with which the public fed their monstrous idol became at length ridiculous in the ears of Madame de Stolberg :-thus, without any actual breach, the distance between them grew imperceptibly wider, and Wolfstein, with all his affected nonchalance, could not save himself from a secret pang ofvexation when he heard that the wit and irony of this lively lady had been frequently directed against those of his followers who seemed to have no other business on earth than to feed his already bloated vanity by their indiscriminate

and servile worship. He rallied in turn, and all was outwardly well: but, in the meanwhile, the offender was entered on his proscribed list against the day of retribution,—a period which was now arrived, and the poor Princess, unknown to any but herself and her tormentor, was doing rigorous penance.

One day that the Empress held her levee, the Chevalier entered, and with that chastened expression, which since his professed reformation he had thought proper to adopt, he approached her Majesty, and having performed his salutations, laid on her footstool an elegant MS., saying,

"At length, madam, my pen has poured forth lays whose tendency at least will ensure your gracious reception of them."

Theodore raised it from its humble station, and placed it in her hand, when she saw with delight that it was a paraphrase of some of the most striking pas

sages in sacred writ, executed with that. exquisite pathos and sublimity, which never failed to adorn even his most exceptionable verse: they had been set to appropriate music by one of the most eminent masters of that period, and the notes were interleaved with the subject they were adapted to accompany. The Empress expressed, in the most affectionate and encouraging terms, the gratification with which she accepted this promising token.

"Now, indeed," said she, "you are turning your talent to account; for if ever human intellect may presume to glory, it is when it consecrates itself to such hallowed uses. Persuade one of your fair friends to accompany some of these beautiful anthems with her lute; I am impatient to hear if the music does them justice."

"From you they will derive redoubled force and pathos," said he, addressing Princess Stolberg, "you, who have im