Less favoured than the famous beech of the Castle of the Carpathians, which still possessed three branches, the house of Télek was now reduced to one, that of Télek of Krajowa, whose last offspring was the young gentleman who had just arrived at the village of Werst.

      During his infancy he had never left the patrimonial castle where the Count and Countess of Télek lived. The descendants of the family were held in great esteem in the country, where they spent their wealth generously. Living the liberal, easy life of the country nobility, it was seldom that they left their estate at Krajowa more than once a year, and that when business took them to the town of that name, which was only a few miles away.

      This kind of life had of necessity an influence on the education of their only son, and for long afterwards Franz felt the effects of the surroundings amid which his childhood was passed. His only tutor was an old Italian priest, who could only teach him what he knew, and he did not know much. And so when the boy had become a young man he had but a very inadequate knowledge of science or art or contemporary literature. To be an enthusiastic sportsman, afoot night and day through the forests and on the plains, hunting the stag and the wild bear, and attacking the wild beasts of the mountains, knife in hand, such were the ordinary pastimes of the young count, who, being very brave and very resolute, accomplished wonders in these rough occupations.

      The Countess of Télek died when her son was scarcely fifteen, and he was only one-and-twenty when his father died in a hunting accident.

      The grief of young Franz was extreme. As he had wept for his mother he wept for his father, who had just been taken from him, one after the other, within these few years. All his tender feelings, all the affectionate impulses of his heart, were then centred in this filial love which had been sufficient for him during his childhood and youth. But when this love failed him, having no friends and his tutor being dead, he found himself alone in the world.

      For three years the young count remained at the Castle of Krajowa. He could not make up his mind to leave it. He lived there without seeking to make any acquaintances outside. Once or twice he had been to Bucharest, but that was because certain matters obliged him to go there; and these were but short absences, for he was in haste to return to his domain.

      This life could not, however, last for ever, and Franz began to feel the want of enlarging the horizon which was so restricted by the Roumanian mountains; and he wished to fly beyond it.

      The young count was about twenty-three years old when he made up his mind to travel. His wealth enabled him to fully gratify his wishes. One day he left the Castle of Krajowa to his old servants and left the Wallachian country. He took with him Rotzko, an old Roumanian soldier, who had been for ten years in the family, and who had been the young count’s companion in all his hunting expeditions. He was a man of courage and resolution, entirely devoted to his master.

      The young count’s intention was to visit Europe and to stay a few months in the capitals and important towns of the Continent. He considered, not without cause, that his education, which had been only begun at the Castle of Krajowa, might be completed by what he learnt on a care fully planned tour.

      It was to Italy that Franz de Télek wished to go first, for he could speak Italian fairly well, the old priest having taught him. The attraction of this country, so rich in memories, was such that he stayed there four years. He only left Venice to go to Florence, he left Rome but to go to Naples, constantly returning to these artistic centres, from which he could not tear himself away. France, Germany, Spain, Russia, England he would see later on; he would even study them to better advantage—so it seemed to him—when age had matured his ideas. On the other hand, he must be in all the effervescence of youth to enjoy the charms of the great Italian cities.

      Franz de Télek was twenty-seven when he went to Naples for the last time. He intended to spend only a few hours there before leaving for Sicily. By the exploration of the ancient Trinacria he purposed to end his tour, and then return to his Castle of Krajowa and have a year’s rest.

      An unexpected circumstance not only changed his plans, but decided his life and changed its course.

      During the few years he had lived in Italy the young count had not learned much of the sciences, for which he felt no aptitude, but the sense of the beautiful had been revealed to him like light to a blind man. With his mind widely opened to the splendours of art, he had become enthusiastic over the masterpieces of painting, in visiting the galleries of Naples, Rome, and Florence. At the same time the theatres had made him acquainted with the lyric works cf the time, and he became powerfully interested in their interpretation by the great artistes.

      It was during his last stay at Naples, and under circumstances we are about to relate, that a sentiment of a more personal character, of more intensive penetration, took possession of his heart.

      There was then at the theatre of San Carlo a celebrated singer whose pure voice, finished method, and dramatic ability had won the admiration of all the dilettanti. Up to then La Stilla had never sought the applause of foreigners, and had never sung any other music than Italian, which then held the first place in the art of composition. The Carignan Theatre at Turin, the Scala at Milan, the Fenice, at Venice, the Alfieri at Florence, the Apollo at Rome, the San Carlo at Naples, introduced her in turn, and her triumphs left her no room for regret that she had not appeared at the other theatres of Europe.

      La Stilla, then aged five-and-twenty, was a woman of ideal beauty, with her long golden hair, the ardour of her deep-black eyes, the purity of her complexion, and a figure which the chisel of a Praxiteles could not have made more perfect. And this woman had become a sublime artiste, another Malibran, of whom Musset could also say,—

      “And thy songs in the skies bore away sorrow.”

      But this voice which the most adored of poets has celebrated in his immortal stanzas, “that voice of the heart which only finds the heart,” that voice was La Stilla’s in all its inexpressible magnificence.

      However, this incomparable prima donna, who reproduced with such perfection the accents of tenderness, the