only too apparent to Charlotte.

It was time that the Captain returned. He came up and unrolled his
design before the Count. But with what changed eyes Charlotte now looked
at the friend whom she was to lose. In her necessity, she bowed and
turned away, and hurried down to the summer-house. Before she was half
way there, the tears were streaming from her eyes, and she flung herself
into the narrow room in the little hermitage, and gave herself up to an
agony, a passion, a despair, of the possibility of which, but a few
moments before, she had not had the slightest conception.

Edward had gone with the Baroness in the other direction toward the
ponds. This ready-witted lady, who liked to be in the secret about
everything, soon observed, in a few conversational feelers which she
threw out, that Edward was very fluent and free-spoken in praise of
Ottilie. She contrived in the most natural way to lead him out by
degrees so completely that at last she had not a doubt remaining that
here was not merely an incipient fancy, but a veritable, full-grown
passion.

Married women, if they have no particular love for one another, yet are
silently in league together, especially against young girls. The
consequences of such an inclination presented themselves only too
quickly to her world-experienced spirit. Added to this, she had been
already, in the course of the day, talking to Charlotte about Ottilie;
she had disapproved of her remaining in the country, particularly being
a girl of so retiring a character; and she had proposed to take Ottilie
with her to the residence of a friend who was just then bestowing great
expense on the education of an only daughter, and who was only looking
about to find some well-disposed companion for her--to put her in the