"Oh, yes!" replied she, in a frank yet playful tone, "I have loved deeply and truly."
Algernon Grey was silent for a moment. He would have given much to have asked, "Whom?" but he did not venture, and the next instant the beautiful girl went on in a tone that reproved him for the question he had put.
"I have loved my parents," she said, "deeply and well--though one of them I cannot remember--I have loved my friends--I do love my princess."
"It was not of such love I spoke," he answered, gazing down at her earnestly.
"Then, I know no other," she replied, "do you?"
"Oh, yes, many," he said, laughing; "there is a warmer, a more sparkling, I might almost call it, a fiercer kind of love, which every man, who has mingled a good deal in the world, must have seen in its effects, if he have not experienced it in his person.--But I am not in a confessional," continued he; "and so I shall say no more."
"And yet you would put me in one," she answered gaily; "but certainly when I go there, I will have a more reverend father-confessor; for methinks, you are given to asking questions, which I may not be inclined to answer."
Her companion paused in meditation during a moment or two; for her words raised a certain degree of doubt in his mind, as to whether she belonged to the Protestant or to the Catholic party, who, at the time I write of, lived together in the various towns of Germany, rather enduring than tolerating each other. It seemed a night of frankness, however, when questions might be easily asked, which would be impertinent at a graver and more reserved moment; and he demanded, at length, in a light tone: "Pray, tell me, before I say more, are you one of those who condemn all Protestants to fire and faggot here and in the other world, or of those who think the power of the Pope an intolerable burden and the doctrines of that church heretical?"
"Oh, I understand you," she said, after a moment's thought; "you would ask of what religion I am, and laugh a little at both, to put your question in a form not uncivil to either. But if you needs must know, I will tell you thus much--I was born a Protestant."
"Born a protestant!" Algernon Grey exclaimed; "that seems to me a new way of becoming one."