American oaks, acacias, firs--threw their shade abroad, and wrought
a rich diversity in the colors of the foliage. The soil here rose
into gentle hillocks, and there sank in depressions and natural
gorges. All things seemed without order or system, and where art had
done its work, there seemed to be the mere hand of free, unfettered
Nature.

The farther the queen advanced with her companion into the garden,
the more glowing became her countenance, and the more her eyes
beamed with their accustomed fire.

"Is it not beautiful here?" asked she, of the baron, who was walking
silently by her side.

"It is beautiful wherever your majesty is," answered he, with an
almost too tender tone. But the queen did not notice it. Her heart
was filled with an artless joy; she listened with suspended breath
to the trilling song of the birds, warbling their glad hymns of
praise out from the thickets of verdure. How could she have any
thought of the idle suggestions of the voice of the baron, who had
been chosen as her companion because of his forty-five years, and of
his hair being tinged with gray?

"It seems to me, baron," she said, with a charming laugh, while
looking at a bird which, its song just ended, soared from the bushes
to the heavens--" it seems to me as if Nature wanted to send me a
greeting, and deputed this bird to bring it to me. Ah," she went on
to say, with quickly clouded brow, "it is really needful that I
should at times hear the friendly notes and the sweet melodies of
such a genuine welcome. I have suffered a great deal today, baron,