respect which was due to his character and station. Among his effects
was found a will, in which he made Adelaide his heiress, bequeathing
to her his little landed estate, and a small sum in gold, the produce
of his toil and frugality. This event cast a gloom over the spirits of
the young maiden, from which, however, her religious persuasions, the
attention of her friends, and the elasticity of her youth, eventually
relieved her.

The old castle on the Rhine was gay once more, when Rudolph Ernstein,
a nephew of the baron, a gay young captain of hussars, whose
gallantry and beauty had given him reputation at Vienna, came to pay a
long visit to his uncle. He was a high-spirited and accomplished young
man, had served with distinction, was a devoted admirer of the ladies,
and one of those military Adonises who are born to conquest. He was
charmed to find domesticated beneath the old roof tree so fair and
lovable a girl as Adelaide, and of course did his best to render his
society agreeable to her. He sang to her songs of his own writing, to
airs of his own composition, accompanied on his guitar; he told her
tales of strange lands that he had visited, of cavalry skirmishes in
which he had participated, sketched her favorite scenes in pencil, and
offered to teach her the newest dances in vogue at Vienna. He was a
dangerous companion to a young girl whose imagination needed but a
spark to kindle it, and for a time she indulged in the wild hope that
she had made a conquest of Rudolph. But then her reason told her, that
even if he loved her, it would be impossible for a young man of family
to offer his hand to an almost portionless girl, about whose origin a
veil of mystery seemed wrapped. The names of her parents, even, had
never been disclosed to her, by the lips of probably the only man who
knew her history, and those lips were now cold and mute in death.
Hence the little gleam of sunshine which had for a moment penetrated