There are in the life of every family, as in that of nations, moments when all the members feel more or less distinctly that something great and extraordinary is going to happen. The dark future casts its shadow far back upon the present, filling the minds of some with dismay and of others with hope, but everywhere causing a restlessness which, in its turn, contributes to bring about the crisis.

Such a time of feverish excitement had come for the company at Castle Grenwitz also. Just now they had been so quiet--But Bruno's accident might have told the acute observer that beneath the smooth even surface, with its polite courtesy and its painful compliance with social forms, there was something seething and heaving; secret love and deep-hidden hate; hostility masked by the appearance of perfect peace and good-will--heartfelt sympathies under the cover of indifference and even antipathy. The very face of life had changed. The stillness, so perfect as almost to become oppressive, which had formerly reigned in the chÂteau, was now frequently interrupted. Baron Felix, who had little disposition to play the hermit, could not deny himself the pleasure of taking up one or the other of his favorite pursuits. The day after his arrival his two superb saddle-horses had already come, and thus larger excursions were made possible, when the carriage could be escorted by at least two of the gentlemen on horseback. In a remote part of the garden a rough shooting-gallery was knocked up, and during the late afternoon hours the short, sharp crack of rifled pistols could be heard in the quiet rooms that looked upon the garden. As riding, shooting, and hunting are amusements which demand numbers, Oswald, Albert, and even Bruno were never safe, lest Felix should come and beg them and plague them till they yielded to his wishes, and became his companions in one or the other of his pastimes. Felix was one of those men who are never idle, without ever being well occupied; he would spend hours at his toilet, and read between BÉranger's songs or a few chapters in the Liaisons Dangereuses, his two favorite books; or he would play the first bars of a piece of music, stopping abruptly to complete the training of his handsome pointer, and thus continually waste very valuable natural gifts in the pursuit of frivolous and bootless purposes. For Felix had been richly endowed by nature, and even his idle and reckless life had not been able to destroy them all. No one could mistake the desire for something better that was in him, although it would show itself unfortunately only in a feverish restlessness with which he took up everything that was new, in an ambition to be everywhere the first, or at least to appear to be first, nay, even in his unmeasured vanity, and the incredible attention which he bestowed upon his appearance. He might have been saved, perhaps, if he had ever discovered the higher purposes of life, or at least had been forced to eat the bread of poverty. As it was, he slowly and pleasantly drifted down the current of his passions towards the point where he must infallibly sink and drown if a miracle did not intervene to save him.

Could he have been in earnest in the change of life which he so often discussed with the baroness? It may be doubted. He had become tired of living in garrison, and his position was such that when he applied for an extended leave of absence he was given to understand that he had better leave the army altogether, if his health was so very feeble. Just at that critical moment the baroness came with her offer about Helen. Felix found here a resource of which he had never thought,--for Anna Maria's views of money matters were well known to him from sad experience,--and he seized it with both hands; although he by no means liked the idea of marrying, still he was ready to yield that point. Great was his surprise, therefore, when he found in his cousin, whom he had never seen before, a girl more beautiful and more attractive than any lady he had ever known before,--a being whom the proudest on earth would be happy to call his own. Thus not two days had gone by before Felix's heart was filled with a passion for his fair cousin, which, closely examined, was probably nothing but sheer vanity, but which appeared to him like a miracle. Selfish men are vain of everything, even of their simple and natural feelings, and thus Felix never tired of speaking to the baroness of his love, as of an eighth wonder of the world, and overflowed even towards Oswald with his admiration of his own bold hopes. Was his passion returned? Felix did not doubt it for a moment. Had he not so far succeeded in all cases? Had not his luck with women become proverbial among his comrades, each one of whom looked upon himself as a Paris? And had he not seen again and again that love is fond of hiding under the mask of indifference? It is true, his fair cousin seemed to carry the comedy almost too far; she treated him with a coldness, a contempt, which became almost offensive at times--but this did not disturb him in his firm faith in his irresistible charms, and he laughed at the baroness whenever she advised him to be cautious. For Anna Maria, undisturbed by personal vanity, saw much clearer in this matter than Felix. She could not help even admiring the consistent uniformity of Helen's manner, and the modest firmness with which she uttered and sustained her views; for the baroness valued energy of character above other things, and most so in herself. There was something in the haughty beauty of her daughter which she was compelled to respect--a light from a higher world than that, filled with self-interest and petty ambition, in which she was living herself--Helen had, since that evening on the beach, become, if possible, more quiet and reserved than before. She retired, whenever she could do so, to her room. When she appeared in company she generally attached herself to her father, or tried to manage it so that Bruno became her companion when they walked out. She always had some little service to give him to do; now he had to carry her hat or her mantilla, and now to gather a flower on the other side of the ditch, or to give her his hand in climbing up the steep shore. Bruno performed every duty with a gentle earnestness which often provoked Baron Felix to mockery; but the others, who knew the boy, and the unbridled passions in his heart, were unspeakably touched. His whole being seemed to be changed when Helen's eye rested on him. He became gentle and kind, ready to help and to serve; a word from her, a mere sign of her long, dark eyelashes, and he became quiet after a sudden burst of temper. He rarely, however, showed his violence now, except against Felix, for whom he entertained a hatred and a contempt which he hardly attempted to conceal. He always had a scornful word for him in readiness, and the many little exposures to which his unmeasured vanity made him liable, found in Bruno a pitiless censor. He became all the more annoying to Felix as his youth prevented the usual weapons from being used against him, while a skilful blow from above was apt to be parried with still greater skill. Felix himself felt this to a certain degree, and if the boy appeared to him insignificant, he still proved very troublesome. Wherever Helen appeared, there was Bruno also; and if she ever had stayed behind during a walk, and Felix was just on the point of speaking to her of his love, Bruno was sure to join them, as if by agreement, and Felix, who knew nothing at all of botany and mineralogy, had to leave the two to their scientific researches. How would he have wondered if he could have found out that these "researches," as he called them, were broken off the moment he was out of sight, and that Bruno, tearing the flower in his hand to pieces, cried out: "Look, Helen, that is the way you will tear my heart, if you ever love this man Felix!"--"The old story, Bruno?"--"Yes, the old story, and I will tell it as long as there is a breath in my bosom. Do you think I do not know what it means when aunty and Felix put their heads together, and look from time to time stealthily at you? Oh, I have sharp eyes, and good ears, too! Yesterday, as I passed them, the fine gentleman said: She'll come to her senses! She--that was you; and come to your senses meant: She will forget her self-respect and marry a wretched, vain peacock like myself"--"But how can you imagine such things, Bruno?"--"Well, I think that is not so difficult. And you imagine them too, I know, or why do you look so often straight before you, in deep thought, and then suddenly at Felix or Oswald, as if you were comparing the two with each other? Yes, just compare them! Then you will see the difference between a man and--an ape!"--"Are you very fond of Mr. Stein, Bruno? Is he always so sad and silent?"--"Oh, no! He can be as wild as a colt; I don't know what is the matter with him now, or rather I know it, but----" --"But?"--"But I must not tell--yes, I think I can tell you; for you are not like the others. I always feel as if you ought to look right down into my heart, as they say God does; as if I ought to have no secret for you."--"But I do not want you to betray a secret"--"I won't betray anything, because Oswald has never said a word to me. I only know that he is so sad and silent since Aunt Berkow is gone. We were talking of it at dinner to-day, how long she would stay away, and whether she would marry again after Uncle Berkow's death, and I saw how Oswald turned pale, and did not raise his eyes from his plate during the whole conversation. And then, when Felix remarked that Baron Oldenburg might be able to answer that question, as he had gone to N. after Aunt Berkow, he suddenly raised his head, with an angry look, and opened his lips as if to say something; but he said nothing and bit his lips; and to-night he is sadly out of humor."--"And all that means----" --"All that means, simply, that Oswald is very fond of Aunt Berkow, and does not like her to be talked about; just as little as I like it when aunty and Felix talk of you."--"Ah, you do not know what you are talking about"--"Of course, that is always the refrain: I don't know what I am talking about! I am a foolish boy, hurrah! hurrah! I have no ears to hear, no eyes to see. Why? Because I am only sixteen, and my beard is not as long as it might be."

How did Helen receive this news? Was she disappointed in her heart? Or did she find another explanation for the melancholy look in Oswald's blue eyes? Perhaps she would not have been able to explain it to herself, but at all events it did not diminish the interest she had felt for Oswald ever since that evening on the strand. She began to observe him more closely than heretofore; she watched every one of his words; she played and sang by preference the music he liked best, and when he appeared once more in the garden in the morning, she was rejoiced. She thanked him in her heart if he, who was so silent everywhere else, always had some kind word for her, and entered cheerfully upon every subject she suggested, sometimes seriously, sometimes jestingly, but always in the cordial manner of an elder brother. Did the charm of Oswald's personal appearance really begin to have an effect upon the proud girl, susceptible as she was for everything beautiful and noble? Was it jealousy, or was it simply a kind of opposition to the plans of her mother, which appeared daily more clearly, that made her take such an interest in a man whom her aristocratic eye would otherwise have carelessly overlooked? The most contrary sentiments contended in her heart, as often, on a deep blue summer sky, light gray clouds are drifting aimlessly about till the tempest breaks forth in its full power.