retreating, Gustavus Adolphus, with his colossal bust, and "atlantean
shoulders, fit to bear the weight of mightiest monarchies." He also had
perished, and too probably by the double crime of assassination and
private treason; but the public glory of his short career was
proclaimed in the ungenerous exultations of Catholic Rome from Vienna
to Madrid, and the individual heroism in the lamentations of soldiers
under every banner which now floated in Europe. Beyond him ran the long
line of imperial generals,--from Wallenstein, the magnificent and the
imaginative, with Hamlet's infirmity of purpose, De Mercy, etc., down
to the heroes of partisan warfare, Holk, the Butlers, and the noble
Papenheim, or nobler Piccolomini. Below them were ranged Gustavus Horn,
Banier, the Prince of Saxe-Weimar, the Rhinegrave, and many other
Protestant commanders, whose names and military merits were familiar to
Paulina, though she now beheld their features for the first time.
Maximilian was here the best interpreter that she could possibly have
met with. For he had not only seen the greater part of them on the
field of battle, but, as a favorite and confidential officer of the
emperor's, had personally been concerned in diplomatic transactions
with the most distinguished amongst them.

Midnight insensibly surprised them whilst pursuing the many interesting
historical remembrances which the portraits called up. Most of the
company, upon this warning of the advanced hour, began to drop off;
some to rest, and some upon the summons of the military duty which
awaited them in their turn. In this way, Maximilian and Paulina were
gradually left alone, and now at length found a time which had not
before offered for communicating freely all that pressed upon their
hearts. Maximilian, on his part, going back to the period of their last
sudden separation, explained his own sudden disappearance from Vienna.
At a moment's warning, he had been sent off with sealed orders from the