Three figures, dressed in black, now came from one of the green
alleys, and stopped on the brink of a little fountain, that was
playing among the gay flowers in the garden. The eldest of the three
was a lady in that season of life, when the early autumn gives to
the summer leaves a warmer glow, yet fades them not. Though the
mother of many children, she was still beautiful;--resembling those
trees, which blossom in October, when the leaves are changing, and
whose fruit and blossom are on the branch at once. At her side was a
girl of some sixteen years, who seemed to lean upon her arm for
support. Her figure was slight; her countenance beautiful, though
deadly white; and her meek eyes like the flower of the night-shade,
pale and blue, but sending forth golden rays. They were attended by
a tall youth of foreign aspect, who seemed a young Antinous, with a
mustache and a nose a la Kosciusko. In other respects a perfect hero
of romance.

"Unless mine eyes deceive me," said the Baron, "there is the Frau
von Ilmenau, with her pale daughter Emma, and that eternal Polish
Count. He is always hovering about them, playing the unhappy exile,
merely to excite that poor girl's sympathies; and as wretched as
genius and wantonness can make him."

"Why, he is already married, you know," replied Flemming. "And
his wife is young and beautiful."

"That does not prevent him from being in love with some one else.
That question was decided in the Courts of Love in the Middle Ages.
Accordingly he has sent his fair wife to Warsaw. But how pale the
poor child looks."