“How lightly you talk, Agnes! just as if it only required a visit to the Z—s at Hohenfels to make me forget the last four weeks! I tell you I can never love another as I do Hildegarde; so you must propose something else.”
“Are you quite determined to go with them to-morrow?”
“Quite.”
“Suppose when you are gone I speak to papa; mamma will at all events tell him when she finds that you are actually off; but you know I can generally make papa do whatever I please, and if I explain to him that you are very unhappy, absolutely miserable——”
“Tell him that I am in the depths of despair, or in a state to commit any kind of excess! Say that I talked of emigrating to America with Hildegarde; tell him whatever you like, you dear little mediatrix! if you can only obtain his consent.”
“Suppose I succeed with papa, and mamma remains inexorable?”
“Oh, leave me to manage my mother; I have no fear of serious opposition from her.”
“There I fear you are quite mistaken,” said Agnes; “but,” she added gaily, “let us hope the best.”
“Yes; and let us now take a walk, and you shall hear all my plans for the future.”
As they sauntered away together, Hamilton heard Zedwitz say, “I shall, of course, quit the army. My father will, probably, give me Castle Wolfstein, as he dislikes the mountains as much as I like them. We shall be near Hohenfels and Z—s, which will be agreeable. As a married man, the father of a family, and all that sort of thing, I don’t know any people I should like so much for neighbours.”