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" are individuals doomed to misfortune, and such is my destiny. There must be, among the general ill-luck, some one who is the unluckiest of them all: I am that one. To be banished from Vienna before the new ballet, and simply for being absent from my quarters without leave—what I have done fifty times before with impunity! And now for Colonel Rasaki—as though he had hoarded all the malice of his life for a moment—to hold forth on the necessity of strict discipline; and to awaken me from the prettiest allegory of the West-wind suddenly being personified by Madlle. Angeline, with an order from the Emperor to try the air of this old castle—as if I were a ghost or a rat, and could possibly be the better for dust, rust, damp, and darkness!"

Count Adalbert walked up and down the gloomy chamber which had been hurriedly prepared for his reception. The high and narrow windows had been built as if quite unconscious of their proper