The Dove in the Eagle's Nest

orefathers in the vaults of the hermitage

o take her home, but she received a sharp answer that she did not know what she was talking of: the Schlangenwald Reitern were besetting all the roads; and moreover the Ulm b

take her to some nunnery midway, and let he

s, of going to make their submission to the Emperor at Linz, with a view to which all violenc

was only at meal times that she was obliged to mingle with the other inhabitants, who, for the most part, absolutely overlooked the little shrinking pale maiden but with one exception, and that the most perplexing of all. She had been on terms with Freiherr Eberhard that were not so easily broken off as if

quit of all indiscretion. Her cheeks flamed, as she sat alone, with the very thought, and the next time she heard the well-known tread on the stair, she fled hastily into her own turret chamber, and shut the door. Her heart beat

uld you,

ther and mother one would think that a partridge had but flown away. I h

in," said Christina. "Our bird has her nest by an Altar that

earer the hearth. "My heart is sore, and I cannot

rossing her hands over her breast, to still her trembling hear

do there; speak truth! Why not stay with

ay not sit down w

y mother been pla

of me; but"-steadying her voice with great dif

come here!" he said, with

I must betake me to Ursel in the kitchen," said

cried, starting up. "Nay, nay, th

ng, "when I give thee my knightly word that all should be a

it would not be maidenly in me. Oh, my lord, you are kind and generous, make it n

ack of the chair as if trying to begin a fresh score.

" cried Christina, the tears rushing into her eyes

twisting his gold chain, said, "And how am I ever to be

rmness, and retreating at once through the door of the staircase, whence she made her

an, no doubt, and those around her were ruffians, but she felt utterly contemptuous and impatient of him. And why was the interchange of greetings, the few words at meals, worth all the rest of the day besides to her? Her own heart was the traitor, and to her own sensations the poor little thing had, in spirit at least, transgressed all Aunt Johanna's precepts against young Barons. She wept apart, and resolved, and prayed, cruelly ashamed of every start of joy or pain that the sight of Eberhard cost her. From almost the first he had sat next her at the single table that accommodated the whole house

he gladly prepared, and, bent on making herself agreeable to her father, did not once press on him the necessity of her return to Ulm. To her ama

aw that Hugh Sorel's presence had obtained him this favour, he wistfully

ord," she answered, w

g the young Baron help her to dismount. It was a look of receiving an idea both new, comical, and flattering, but by no means the look

find means of sending her home. It brought upon her the hearing put int

ew enough up here, but he must have been ill off ere he took to a little ghost li

it is,

that dark eye of thine-the only good thing th

pity's sake, father,

ind is all for the mincing goldsm

d Christina, with clasped hands. "And oh, father, as you were the son of a true and faithful

th the care he took of his daughter. He became convinced that the sooner she was out of the castle the better, and at length bethought him that

's taste, and for his forbearance in not having pushed matters further with a being so helpless, meek, and timid as

the power and purity of this timid, fragile creature, that had struck the young noble. With all their brutal manners reverence for a lofty female nature had been in the German character ever since their Velleda prophesied to them, and this reverence in Eberhard bowed at the feet of the pure gentle maiden, so strong yet so weak, so

readed. He was wretched and forlorn without the resources he had found in his sister's room; the new and better cravings of his higher nature had been excited only to remain unsupplied and disappointed; and the affectionate heart in the freshness of its sorrow yearned for the com

h not in will, that it depended to preserve this reverence, and