'You quite mistake, and only wish to hear me contradict you. He is much less so than your special admirer, Baron Grünthal, the Director of the Upper Consistorial Court.'
'A hideous old frump!' said Ernestine, tossing her head.
'Old! He is only forty.'
'But that is more than twice my age. My husband must be young and handsome.'
'Like Carl Pierrepont?'
'Yes, like Carl Pierrepont.'
'He certainly seems to have impressed you,' said Herminia.
'You forget how often and how much Heinrich has written of him in his letters to me. He seems quite like an old friend. How strange it would be,' continued the girl, while a dreamy expression stole into her beautiful dark eyes, as she sat with her slender fingers interlaced over her knees, 'how very strange it would, if in him I should have met—met——'
'What, cousin?
'My fate.'