 who surrounded them, with a rapture of faithful love he caught the noble
young beauty into his arms, a movement to which, in the frank innocence of her
heart, she made no resistance; folded her to his bosom, and impressed a fervent
kiss upon her lips; whilst the only words that came to his own were, »Beloved
Paulina! oh, most beloved lady! what chance has brought you hither?«
 

                                   Chapter IV

In those days of tragical confusion, and of sudden catastrophe, alike for better
or for worse, when the rendings asunder of domestic charities were often within
an hour's warning, when reunions were as dramatic and as unexpected as any which
are exhibited on the stage, and too often separations were eternal, - the
circumstances of the times concurred with the spirit of manners to sanction a
tone of frank expression to the stronger passions which the reserve of modern
habits would not entirely license. And hence, not less than from the noble
ingenuousness of their natures, the martial young cavalier and the superb young
beauty of the Imperial house, on recovering themselves from their first
transports, found no motives to any feeling of false shame, either in their own
consciousness, or in the reproving looks of any who stood around them. On the
contrary, - as the grown-up spectators were almost exclusively female, to whom
the evidences of faithful love are never other than a serious subject, or
naturally associated with the ludicrous, - many of them expressed their sympathy
with the scene before them by tears, and all of them in some way or other. Even
in this age of more fastidious manners, it is probable that the tender
interchanges of affection between a young couple rejoining each other after deep
calamities, and standing on the brink of fresh, perhaps endless, separations,
would meet with something of the same indulgence from the least interested
witnesses.
    Hence the news was diffused through the camp with general satisfaction that
a noble and accomplished cavalier, the favoured lover of their beloved young
mistress, had joined them from Klosterheim with a chosen band of volunteers,
upon whose fidelity in action they might entirely depend. Some vague account
floated about, at the same time, of the marauding attack upon the Lady Paulina's
carriage. But, naturally enough, from the confusion and hurry incident to a
nocturnal disturbance, the circumstances were mixed up with the arrival of
Maximilian, in a way which ascribed to him the merit of having repelled an
attack which might else have proved fatal to the lady of his heart. And this
romantic interposition of Providence on a young lady's behalf,
