Here surprise and joy forced from Eva's lips the question, "His mother?"
and there was such amazement in the tone that, as the Lady Wendula,
bowing low, approached the Emperor, after exchanging the first greetings
which pass between old friends who have been long separated, he asked how
it happened that though Eva seemed to have already met the matron, she
heard with such surprise that she was the mother of his brave favourite.

Lady Wendula then confessed the name she had given herself, that she
might study the young girl without being known; and again that peculiar
smile flitted across the Emperor Rudolph's beardless face, and lingered
there, as he asked the widow of his dead companion in arms whether, after
such an examination, she believed she had found the right wife for her
son; and she replied that a long life would not give her time enough to
thank Heaven sufficiently for such a daughter.

The maiden who was the subject of this whispering, whose purport only a
loving glance from the Lady Wendula revealed, pressed her hand upon her
heart, whose impetuous throbbing stifled her breath. Oh, how gladly she
would have hastened to the mother of the man she loved and his young
sister, who stood at a modest distance, to clasp them in her arms, and
confide to them what seemed too great, too much, too beautiful for
herself alone, yet which might crumble at a single word from her lover's
lips like an undermined tower swept away by the wind! But she was forced
to have patience, and submit to whatever might yet be allotted to her.

Nor was she to lack agitating experiences, for the Emperor's murmured
question whether she desired to hear herself called "daughter" by this
admirable lady had scarcely called forth an answer, which, though mute,
revealed the state of her heart eloquently enough, than he added in a