The dead tryst

THE COUSINS.

On an evening in summer before the late siege of Paris, three ladies--one a matron of mature years, the other two both young and handsome girls, a brunette and a blonde--were seated in one of the lofty windows of a stately room on the first étage of the Grand Hotel Royal, which immediately overlooks the Rhine at Cologne.

The senior of these--Adelaide, Countess of Frankenburg, a woman grey-haired now, and with features somewhat of the heavy German type--had just received a letter, and was intent upon it, while her daughter Ernestine, and her orphan niece Herminia, watched her face with interest, and forgot the little Tauchnitz editions over which they had been idling.

'What does my brother Heinrich say?' asked Ernestine.

'That he has got extended leave of absence from Potsdam, and next week will arrive at Frankenburg, to spend some time with us. He brings with him a young English friend, Carl Pierrepont, an officer of his regiment. I trust, Herminia, you will receive my dear boy with all the affection he so justly merits.'

But Herminia made no reply, so the Countess repeated what she had said, and fixed her eyes steadily and inquiringly upon her. She only sighed, opened, and then tossed aside her Tauchnitz edition of an English novel. The Countess's ideas of propriety would not permit her to allow her girls to peruse any other light literature; but having an idea that a married woman might read works of a higher-flavoured nature, she sometimes read the works of MM. Dumas and De Kock, to 'keep up her French,' as she phrased it

The cousins--known as 'the Belles of Frankenburg'--were alike in stature and delicacy, but very dissimilar in style of beauty and in complexion. Herminia was dazzlingly fair, of a pure Saxon type, with hair of that lovely brown tint which seems shot with gold in the sunshine, and soft eyes of violet-blue, that seemed almost black at night, and though brown her tresses, and wondrously fair her skin, her eyelashes and eyebrows were dark, almost black; but her pretty little nose bordered rather on the retroussé.

Ernestine was a dark beauty, with black hair and clear, but thoughtful and dreamy hazel eyes, which she inherited with the blood of some Hungarian ancestor; her whole style was more classic than that of her cousin. Her nose was slightly aquiline, with dark straight eyebrows that nearly met over it, imparting a great degree of character to her face, which was suggestive of decision of mind and firmness of purpose--a little self-willed and opinionated, perhaps; for Ernestine was not without her faults. She was fond of admiration; but what pretty girl is not? She liked dress and gaiety, and would dance all night if her partners pleased her.

The Countess carefully folded her son's letter, and fixing her keen grey eyes on Herminia, said, somewhat sententiously:

'Though an old man now, the father of my Heinrich was as brave a soldier as ever trod the soil of Germany, and his name is yet venerated among the Uhlans of the Archduke; and I am proud to say, Herminia, that his son is worthy of such a father.'

'Were my cousin the Archduke himself,' said Herminia, wearily, for she was pretty well used to hear these encomiums, 'he would be totally indifferent to me.'

'Herminia!'

'Totally, I repeat. Pardon me, dear Aunt Adelaide; but he has no particular claim on my regard.'

'He is your cousin, your own blood relation--near almost as a brother!' said the Countess, impatiently.

'But still, mamma, as I have said a hundred times before, he can have no claim upon her hand,' urged Ernestine, who had not yet spoken on the subject.

'Do you, Grafine, wish to abet Herminia in her strange contumacy?' asked the Countess, severely.

'I speak but my thoughts, dearest mamma.'

'Her father, the Staats Rath, gave her away to him as a child; but you, as well as I do, know the arrangement made by our family; they were betrothed when she was in her cradle, and he a schoolboy at Bonn; and now he comes to claim her hand, in virtue of that betrothal,' added the Countess, who, though a German, had considerable nobility and dignity in her bearing and aspect.

'Such foolish arrangements may have been made long ago, Aunt Adelaide, when robber-barons lived in those ruined castles which look down from every rock upon the Rhine; but such would be absurd in these days of ours, when its waters are ploughed up by steamers, and the lurlies and elves have all been put to flight.'

'Herminia,' said the Countess, with increasing severity, 'do you revere the memory of the Baron and Privy Councillor your father?'

'I do, indeed, Aunt Adelaide; my father's memory is very dear to me, even as that of my dead mother, whom I never saw,' replied the girl, with her eyes growing moist; 'but I decline to admit the right of either to give me, while yet a helpless child, away to anyone in marriage. The idea is eccentric; it is more, it is odious and preposterous!'

'You use somewhat strong language, Grafine.'

'Surely not stronger than the situation merits?' replied Herminia, her soft voice trembling with agitation and annoyance. 'If my cousin Heinrich is unmanly enough to insist upon the fulfilment of this most absurd family compact, I shall ever deem him most unworthy of my regard, or, indeed, that of any woman!' added Herminia, whose tears now began to fall.

'Then it is your resolution to violate, to trample upon, to utterly disregard the affectionate contract made by your parents and by his?'

'But I have never seen this--this most tiresome cousin, Aunt Adelaide!'

'That has been a misfortune caused by your being educated in England, while he was at the university, and then with the army.'

'Hence he is to me a stranger, and must be greeted and received as such.'

'I think my brother Heinrich is acting foolishly in bringing the English friend (of whom he writes so frequently) to Frankenburg,' said Ernestine.

'Why?' asked the Countess.

'Because Herminia, in the very spirit of opposition, may fall in love with him.'

'My father could not have taken a surer way to make me shun and loathe my cousin, and even do something more dreadful still, than by forming this arrangement.'

'Something more dreadful still!' repeated the Countess, raising her voice, and surveying her niece through her gold eyeglass. 'In Heaven's name, what do you mean, Herminia?'

'By compelling me to marry a man I don't love; for what happiness could follow a union with a total stranger? Besides, I don't want to marry.'

'Your own cousin a stranger?' persisted the Countess. 'But though we have discussed this subject a thousand times before, there is one feature in it to which I have never referred, and which, consequently, will be new to you.'

'I am glad to hear that,' replied the contumacious little beauty, shrugging her pretty shoulders and almost yawning.

'I mean a clause in your father's will, by which, if you do not marry our Heinrich, your fortune will be divided between him and your cousin Ernestine,--leaving you, in fact, without a silver groschen.'

'I would not have a kreutzer of it--neither, I am sure, would Heinrich!' exclaimed Ernestine, emphatically.

'Neither of you would be consulted in the matter. But now, Herminia, will you brave the prospect of poverty--a life of utter dependence--go back to England as a governess, perhaps?'

'Yes,' said the girl proudly; 'I would brave anything.'

'You love some one else!' exclaimed her aunt.