"What are thy meditations, beautiful stranger?"
"I was dreaming of thee!" uttered he, awaking from his reverie, and fixing his dark, earnest eyes full upon the glowing form before him. His glance, so full of passion, so full of tenderness, so fervent, went to her heart and woke it up—that precious little heart that had been sleeping for sixteen long years.
"Of me! How can that be?" asked Isoleth, with a deep blush. "Dost thou know me? Dost thou—'
"One like thee, most beautiful being!"
"One like me—just like me? How strange! What is her name?"
"Whatever is thy name, loveliest, most lovely lady, is hers."
"My name is Isoleth," replied she, with a low voice, and a deep blush.
"Art thou the Lady Isoleth of Fernheath? Art thou? Stupid! that I did not see sooner that thou art! Yes, thou art! And I am happy, most happy, most inconceivably happy that thou art! Ah!" continued he, in a tone of the most rapturous delight, "that my dream and my bride should prove to be one and the same. I am most inexpressibly joyful!"—and the large tears fell from his eyes like summer rain—"most unutterably—and thou, wilt thou love me, and be mine, my glorious, sweetest, loveliest cousin—my most, most beautiful bride!"
"Thy cousin! thy bride! Alas! alas! thy cousin I may be, but thy bride—! They are going to marry me up there at the castle to an old, ugly, cross prince; he is there now, and you cannot know how much I hate him. I will die—"
"The devil they are! Forgive me, sweetest, most beautiful cousin, it is a foolish way we learn of speaking in camps. But, loveliest, do not talk of dying, let the old and the ugly die, but thou—First tell me who this ugly, old, cross prince is, they shall not marry you to any such."