'Now for your news, friend; it is not pleasant, I fear, when you fortify me thus.'

'Anything must be pleasant that comes to us from the girls we love. The field-post has just come. I have a letter from Herminia, Carl, with a little enclosure for you.'

It was a note—merely a note, on scented and tinted paper, for Ernestine was not above these feminine prettinesses, written in her graceful style and lady-like hand—to say that he was never absent from her thoughts, and how she and Herminia had wept and prayed in secret on the night the army crossed the Rhine.

'I fear, Carl, that I am looking ill and pale,' she continued, 'but sunny-haired Herminia seems to thrive on her grief; but you know she is ever all dimples—dimples on her white elbows and chin, cheeks, and hands—soft jolly dimples. Mamma, tired of knitting—she always knits as if her livelihood depended upon it—has dozed off to sleep, with her Spitz pug under her lace shawl in the boudoir. (The boudoir! Do you ever think of it, and that horrible night when she surprised us while searching for that miserable little cur?) Papa, as dinner is over, is smoking in his study, among his fishing and shooting gear, pistols, guns, whips, collars, and whistles, no doubt drinking to the health of the Kaiser and studying the Staats Anzeiger. All is unchanged since you left Frankenburg, from whence my heart goes with this to you, my dearest Betrothed of Burtscheid.'

Charlie was perusing this for the third time, Heinrich was lolling beside him on the grass, humming 'Du du,' and idly playing with his silver sword-knot, while watching the bright morning sunshine stealing along the wooded hills and winding river, when suddenly there was the report of a needle-gun in front. Another, another, and a third followed, as the whole line of advanced sentinels opened fire, and the out-picket rushed to their arms and fell in their ranks.

'Sapperment!' exclaimed young Frankenburg, springing to his feet; 'it has come at last! This is war! The French are in motion in front; there will soon be work for the grave-digger corps!'

So opened the day on which the young Napoleon was to receive his 'baptism of fire.'

CHAPTER XI.
SEPARATED.

For a time the preparations for her marriage had gone on openly—though Ernestine, in her tenderness of heart and reluctance to wound one she loved so well, made no reference to this in her short letter—so openly that there were times when she contemplated flight; but whither could she fly? and then she shrunk from the dreadful esclandre of such a proceeding; so settlements were made and deeds signed, and from time to time she found beautiful ornaments and jewels, the gifts of the Baron, on her toilette tables; but she never wore them, and the morocco cases remained unopened; till at last a serious illness, or sickness of the heart, in fact, supervened, and the espousals were delayed, and the Count cursed the hour that his thoughtless son had brought his troublesome English comrade to Frankenburg.