"Do not let us this evening speak further on this subject; do not let us disturb our joy. We have now Eva with us at home, and shall have time enough to talk and to think--and then all will be cleared up. Is it not quite for the best that we sleep on this affair? Eva must be weary after her journey, and our 'blue-eyed one' must not weep on this first evening."
Leonore's advice was taken, and with a mutual "forgive," Louise, Eva, and Gabriele embraced and separated for the night. Leonore was happy to be alone with Eva, and listened undisturbedly through the whole night to her relations. The good Leonore!
Major Victor R. was universally known as one of those who make sport with female hearts, and Judge Frank regarded sport of this kind with a severity very uncommon among his sex, especially where, as was the case in this instance, selfishness, and not thoughtlessness, led to it. The Major, ten years before this time, had married a young and rich girl connected with the Judge's family; and the only fault of the young wife, then sixteen, had been that of loving her husband too tenderly--nay, even in adoring one who repaid her love with relentless severity and faithlessness, under which the poor Amelia drooped, and, in the second year of her marriage, died; but not without having bequeathed to the unworthy husband all the property over which she had any control.
These were the very means by which R. now was enabled to pursue his brilliant and reckless career. He always made his court to one of the beauties of the day. He had been several times betrothed, but had broken off the affair again without the smallest regard to the reputation or to the feelings of the girl, upon whom by this means he had cast a stain--nay, indeed, he secretly regarded it as an honour to himself to make such victims, and to cause hearts to bleed for him--that cooled the burning thirst of his self-love.
The world did justice to his agreeable and splendid talents; but the noble of his own sex, as well as of the other, esteemed him but very lightly, inasmuch as they considered him a person without true worth. The thoughts of a union between this man and his beloved daughter occasioned a storm in the bosom of the Judge.