on the point; and, indeed, the difficulty of dealing with myself must
have embarrassed the minister. But it is a mere question of time. He
cannot long remain excluded from the general amnesty already extended to
the other refugees. The person who gave me this information is high in
power, and friendly to myself; and he added a piece of advice on which I
acted. 'It was intimated,' said he, 'by one of the partisans of your
kinsman, that the exile could give a hostage for his loyalty in the
person of his daughter and heiress; that she had arrived at marriageable
age; that if she were to wed, with the emperor's consent, some one whose
attachment to the Austrian crown was unquestionable, there would be a
guarantee both for the faith of the father, and for the transmission of
so important a heritage to safe and loyal hands. Why not' (continued my
friend) 'apply to the emperor for his consent to that alliance for
yourself,--you, on whom he can depend; you who, if the daughter should
die, would be the legal heir to those lands?' On that hint I spoke."

"You saw the emperor?"

"And after combating the unjust prepossessions against me, I stated that
so far from my cousin having any fair cause of resentment against me,
when all was duly explained to him, I did not doubt that he would
willingly give me the hand of his child."

"You did!" cried the marchesa, amazed.

"And," continued the count, imperturbably, as he smoothed, with careless
hand, the snowy plaits of his shirt front,--"and that I should thus have
the happiness of becoming myself the guarantee of my kinsman's loyalty,
the agent for the restoration of his honours, while, in the eyes of the
envious and malignant, I should clear up my own name from all suspicion