"No, my sweet girl," said Madame von Halden: "every body is asleep, it cannot be any thing more than a cat."
"Kunigunde married," proceeded Dorothea; "the men who paid their addresses to me, only teazed me by their coxcombry, or shocked me by their ill breeding. I could not conceive that any one could love me, without my most fervently loving him, and on that account their affected hyperbolical phrases appeared to me so insipid, and I could not possibly believe in their passion. All however was still tolerable, till Baron Wallen came to our house; he soon gained possession of my mother's affections, and the slavery now grew quite insupportable. Now began a parade to be made on a great scale with the love which my sisters bore each other and my mother; it was the talk of the whole province; when strangers came, it was like a drama in which all the virtues were displayed. O forgive me! you and the lonely night will not carry my words farther; you have yourself indeed seen their way, and heaven must alter my feelings, or pardon them. But what was truly alarming was, that in this smooth Baron there moves a very satyr under the priestly robe. He took a liking to Clara, to Clementine too; but the girls, great as was the reverence which they could not help feeling for him, were still terrified at the thought of being forced to adore him as a husband. They were however soon released; for the lot, for which they felt themselves too good, was imperceptibly and artfully shifted upon me. I now heard perpetually how noble, nay how necessary it was, to sacrifice one's self, how wretched a thing the mere passion of love appeared, how much a prudent marriage surpassed all other happiness on earth. Believe me, I should have given way, my life had lost all its bloom, I should have fallen a victim, and become utterly wretched, if----"
Dorothea hesitated. "Well, my child?" asked her friend on the stretch.
"If it had not been, that to-day," she proceeded in her melodious tone, "on this very day, the day on which I was born, and on which I have returned to life again, a man appeared, who was an abomination to our family, with whom, from the descriptions I had heard, I was myself violently angry, a man, who has made a total revolution in my heart, indeed has regenerated it, and whose mere presence, even if he had not spoken, would have rendered it impossible for me to marry the Baron, or indeed any man whatever."
"Wonderful!" cried Madame von Halden.
"Call it so," said the maiden: "indeed it is so, O, and yet again so natural, so necessary! In him, in his mild look, which inspires confidence (believe me I had really quite forgotten there were such things as eyes) in his intelligent discourse, in every one of his gestures, there appeared to me once more that truth which had now become a fable to me, my youthful days, the blessed time of my father. I never could conceive that which men call love; in the Poets indeed I may have caught a glimpse of it, but I always believed that this heavenly feeling was not made for a poor outcast like me; but now I know, it must be that which I experience towards this excellent man, for I could not imagine that such a being really moved upon the earth."
"Poor girl!" said her friend; "he is a ruined man, without property, and besides who knows whether he may feel the same sentiments for you, for he is no longer young. Now go to bed, to-morrow morning early we will consult rationally on the means of soothing the Baroness, and making the Baron leave you in peace."
"I never will return!" cried Dorothea with renewed vehemence. "I would rather be a servant-maid in a distant land."
A noise was now heard more distinctly in the adjoining room, the ladies started, the door opened, a ray of light gleamed through and Count Brandenstein presented himself to them.
"O my God!" cried Dorothea, "the Count himself!"