me where the diffidence due to modesty is forgotten." Heinz Schorlin
understood her and rejoiced to hear the answer. In his eyes, also,
Countess Cordula this evening had exceeded the limits even of the liberty
which by common consent she was permitted above others. He believed that
he had found in Eva the embodiment of pure and beautiful womanhood.

He had given her his heart from the first moment that their eyes met.
To find her in every respect exactly what he had imagined, ere he heard a
single word from her lips, enhanced the pleasure he felt to the deepest
happiness which he had ever experienced.

He had already been fired with a fleeting fancy for many a maiden, but
not one had appeared to him, even in a remote degree, so lovable as this
graceful young creature who trusted him with such childlike confidence,
and whose innocent security by the side of the dreaded heart-breaker
touched him.

Never before had it entered his mind concerning any girl to ask himself
the question how she would please his mother at home. The thought that
she whom he so deeply honoured might possess a magic mirror which showed
her her reckless son as he dallied with the complaisant beauties whose
graciousness, next to dice-playing, most inflamed his blood, had
sometimes disturbed his peace of mind when Biberli suggested it. But
when Eva looked joyously up at him with the credulous confidence of a
trusting child, he could imagine no greater bliss than to hear his
mother, clasping the lovely creature in her arms, call her her dear
little daughter.

His reckless nature was subdued, and an emotion of tenderness which he
had never experienced before thrilled him as she whispered, "Take me to