cing, and had they been each a tarantula, they could not have bitten me into more frantic capering. But they held on like sailors in a storm. I looked at my legs and raved! I thought of Christina and groaned! In the folly of desperation I gnashed my teeth at the leeches, and shook my fist at them, and

then, trying my very useless powers of persuasion, I apostrophized them, "Suck, suck, suck, ye vipers! suck! suck! suck! suck!" But the vipers were in no such hurry as mine;

they pumped on quite composedly, and seemed only intent on filling out every wrinkle of their skins, in order that I might admire the detestably beautiful pattern down their abominable backs! I all but blasphemed! I cursed the weather, the water, the lilies, the leeches, and then my own self for going in, and still more for coming out. I never thought of the cramp, or I should have cursed it too for not seizing me in the middle of the lake!

The second bell sounded like a death-bell:

and there was

I, as effectually pinioned and fastened to the spot by a few paltry vermin, as Gulliver by the Lilliputians. Methought I beheld my empty chair on one side of Christina, and on the other, a hatefully well-made fellow, with an odious handsome face, and a disgustingly sweet voice and manner, endeavoring to make amends for my absence. I stormed, raved, tore my hair, and even wept for vexation. In the paroxysm of my despair, I prayed for wooden legs!

Hitherto the sounds from the Chateau had nothing personal in their character; but now they pointedly addressed themselves to me. First I heard the clang of a gong; then the flourish of a hunting-horn; next the recall upon the bugle; and, finally, a general shout, in which my distempered fancy seemed to detect the clear, sweet voice of Christina above all the rest! I wonder, with water so handy, I did not commit suicide. But a sort of resignation, very different from the

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BONDS

"I WISH I COULD SELL OUT!

marble Resignation which typified Count Pfefferheim leaning over his departed lady, had taken possession of me. It was grim and gloomy - I had resolved to try patience, a catholicon plaster, efficacious in every possible case, with the sole drawback, that nobody can get it to stick on. For my own part, I soon gave up the remedy. I happened to remember the trouble I endured, when I really wanted leeches, to make

them bite, and I could emulate Job no longer. I wished in such ecstasies we do not look before we leap in wishing that I had been affected with Hydrophobia, ere that fatal bath that I had been turned into a serpent at Schlangenbad, or boiled to rags in the Kockbrunnen at Wiesbaden.

At last the clangor ceased; but in lieu of it, I heard the servants running about and beating the wood for me, and calling me by name. If I had been wise I should have answered; but I was now worked up to the frenzy fit of nervousness; I felt my situation, except in my own eyes, sufficiently ludicrous;

and I dreaded lest some mischievous wag, or perhaps rival, should delight to exhibit me in a ridiculous light to Christina. In truth, I should have been, if discovered, a laughable figure enough. To save time eventually, I had dressed myself so far as I could — conceive, then, a gentleman, in full uniform above, even to his cocked hat, but below, perfectly bare legged, with three leeches hanging to one limb, and four to the other! I should think no criminal ever felt more anxious of concealment than I did as I took refuge amongst the tallest reeds!

To pass the time, I had no better amusement than to watch the leeches, how they swelled and filled, and, finally, rolled off, gorged with my precious blood, a pailful of which I would rather have shed for my country at any convenient time and place! And Christina what could she think of my absence? Why, she could only look upon me, as I looked on my leeches, with aversion and disgust, whilst her infernal neighbor, the Colonel, in the splendid uniform of the Royal Guard, for such I painted him, became every moment more agreeable. Of the next five minutes I have no mental record; my impression is, that I was stark, staring, raving, rampant mad!

and when

At length the last of my tormentors fell off, he touched the ground, as I had served all his fellows, I weaned him with a stone from ever sucking again. It was a poor revenge, for, after death, they bequeathed to me a new misery. The blood would not cease flowing, even though I plucked all the nap off one side of my hat to apply to the wounds. I forgot how it would look afterwards stripped of its felt. I was famished besides - but my cruellest hunger was in my heart. O Christina! It seemed an age, ere at last I dared to creep gingerly into my white Kerseymeres! My watch marked it to have been but three hours!

I returned to the Chateau at the pace of a hearse; fearing

to put one foot before the other, and looking sharply every other step at my legs. As for the anticipated celestial waltz — I seemed doomed to make one of that dreary corps of long-visaged gentlemen who prefer to look on. I arrived, however, stainless, spotless, - only I was obliged to keep one side of my hat to myself. An attempt was made to rally me on my absence; but my excuse of having lost myself in the forest passed off very currently; and a tray was ordered for my refreshment. But I was unable to eat a morsel; I could only fill a glass of wine to pledge Christina, who had not shown any sign of resentment; on the contrary, she appeared to commiserate my wanderings in the wild woods. In the mean time the ball began. As I entered the room, in a blaze of light, I fancied that every eye was directed towards my legs: my head swam, and for a minute I seemed waltzing with the whole assembly at once! Christina looked twice reproachfully towards me, ere with the air of a matrimonial martyr saluting his destined bride, I went up and claimed her hand. The music struck up; we began to waltz, at least she did, turning me round with her, as though she had been practising the dance for the first time, with a lay-figure. Stiffly and coldly as I moved, methought I felt the circulation in every vein and artery becoming more and more rapid from even such gentle exercise. At last the whirl ceased, and we sat down again side by side. How I wished for the despised long boots up to the knees, in which I might have chatted at my ease! It was impossible. I never opened my lips except to say yes and no, in the wrong place; sometimes where I should have answered I was mute. One little stain of the slightest possible tinge of crimson, which on eye but my own would have detected, absorbed my whole soul. I was suffering the unspeakable tortures of the murderer, conscious that his secret blood-guiltiness was on the eve of coming to light!

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The gentle Christina, after the first waltz, in consideration, perhaps, of my supposed long ramble in the forest, had expressed her intention of not dancing any more during the evening: a little stir now made me look, and - the fiends seize him! tall, handsome Colonel, in the splendid dress uniform of the Royal Guard, exactly such a figure as my jealous fancy had formerly depicted, was leading her out to dance! The music played a waltz. They turned, they spun, they flew round, in each other's arms — giving me a turn also till my very soul

became sick and dizzy! My eyes grew dim, —I could no longer see but I heard her frequent "ja! ja! ja!" and her light laugh! I wish Doctor Krankengraber could have seen the plight I was in at that moment, merely through bathing, according to his detestable rule. O, that he could have felt my burning temples, my throbbing pulse, my palpitating heart! Had that floor before me been a pond, I verily believe I should have practically illustrated his "Immersion deeply Considered " with my pockets full of stones. I once or twice endeavored to catch the eye of Christina, but in vain. I addressed her, and she looked as coldly on me as one of our kachel-ofens* on a born Englishman!

I would fain have sought an explanation; but this haughty treatment sealed my lips. I no longer attributed her estrangement to any other cause than the imputed fickleness of the sex. Muttering something to the Princess about indisposition I left her ball, without blessing it, and flew home. Three days later I was again at her Chateau, determined to decide my fate. Christina had quitted Posen! In two short months afterwards the Berlin Gazette informed me that she was married to a Colonel of the Royal Guard.

I never beheld her again: but a she-cousin of mine, who was her bosom friend and confidant, in after years, thought proper, amongst other matters of feminine curiosity, to inquire on what grounds her unfortunate kinsman had been repelled. The answer she did me the favor to extract, and kindly sent it to me, by way of a correction, and a guide, probably, should I ever dream of addressing a lady again. The reader is welcome to partake of the document: it runs thus:

"You ask me, dearest Bettine, why I did not like your cousin Albrecht? Under the seal of our sisterly confidence, I will frankly confess to you that it was through no fault of mine. I will even own to something like a preference, up to that memorable evening at the Princess L.'s. I had there determined to watch him narrowly, to observe every light and shade of his character and you know the result. Did you ever hear of the young Count Schönborn; and the egregious personal vanity which brought him to his fate? Suspected of correspondence with the revolted Poles, he disappeared, and, according to the custom with deserters, a vilely daubed effigy, * A German stove, cased with white tiles.