.

THE PRINCESS.
Dinner, and a little piano-music and a song closed an evening that was not dull to Patrick in spite of prolonged silences.

The quiet course of things within the house appeared to him to have a listening ear for big events outside.

He dreaded a single step in the wrong direction, and therefore forbore to hang on any of his conjectures; for he might perchance be unjust to the blessedest heroine on the surface of the earth--a truly awful thought! Yet her name would no longer bear the speaking of it to himself.

It conjured up a smoky moon under confounding eclipse.
Who was Schinderhannes?
Mr.Adister had said, her Schinderhannes.
Patrick merely wished to be informed who the man was, and whether he had a title, and was much of a knave: and particularly Patrick would have liked to be informed of the fellow's religion.