began to outstrip him in some of the higher branches. The squire's brief
reply breathed satisfaction, but too evidently on the point where he had
been led to misconceive the state of affairs. 'He wanted to have me near
him, as did another person, whom I appeared to be forgetting; he granted
me another year's leave of absence, bidding me bluffly not to be a
bookworm and forget I was an Englishman.' The idea that I was deceiving
him never entered my mind.

I was deceiving everybody, myself in the bargain, as a man must do when
in chase of a woman above him in rank. The chase necessitates deceit--
who knows? chicanery of a sort as well; it brings inevitable
humiliations; such that ever since the commencement of it at speed I
could barely think of my father with comfort, and rarely met him with
pleasure. With what manner of face could I go before the prince or the
margravine, and say, I am an English commoner, the son of a man of
doubtful birth, and I claim the hand of the princess? What contortions
were not in store for these features of mine! Even as affairs stood now,
could I make a confidant of Temple and let him see me through the stages
of the adventure? My jingling of verses, my fretting about the
signification of flowers, and trifling with symbols, haunted me
excrutiatingly, taunting me with I know not what abject vileness of
spirit.

In the midst of these tortures an arrow struck me, in the shape of an
anonymous letter, containing one brief line: 'The princess is in need of
help.'

I threw my books aside, and repaired to Count Fretzel's chateau, from
which, happily, my father was absent; but the countenance of the princess
gave me no encouragement to dream I could be of help to her; yet a second