'
'I wish you so well,' she said, 'that I dare not tell it you.'
'Then if I ask my favour?' quoth the Prince.
'Ask it, MON PRINCE,' she answered. 'Whatever it is, it is
granted.'
'I wish you,' he returned, 'this very night to make the farmer of
our talk.'
'Heaven knows your meaning!' she exclaimed. 'I know not, neither
care; there are no bounds to my desire to please you. Call him
made.'
'I will put it in another way,' returned Otto. 'Did you ever
steal?'
'Often!' cried the Countess. 'I have broken all the ten
commandments; and if there were more to-morrow, I should not sleep
till I had broken these.'
'This is a case of burglary: to say the truth, I thought it would
amuse you,' said the Prince.
'I have no practical experience,' she replied, 'but O! the good-
will! I have broken a work-box in my time, and several hearts, my
own included. Never a house! But it cannot be difficult; sins are
so unromantically easy! What are we to break?'
'Madam, we are to break the treasury,' said Otto and he sketched to
her briefly, wittily, with here and there a touch of pathos, the
story of his visit to the farm, of his promise to buy it, and of the
refusal with which his demand for money had been met that morning at
the council; concluding with a few practical words as to the
treasury windows, and the helps and hindrances of the proposed
exploit.
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