"Ah! if the steeple of the Dome Kirk were but finished, I could not
mistake it," said Christina. "How beauteous the white spire will
look from hence!"

"Dome Kirk?" repeated Ermentrude; "what is that?"

Such an entire blank as the poor child's mind seemed to be was
inconceivable to the maiden, who had been bred up in the busy hum of
men, where the constant resort of strange merchants, the daily
interests of a self-governing municipality, and the numerous
festivals, both secular and religious, were an unconscious education,
even without that which had been bestowed upon her by teachers, as
well as by her companionship with her uncle, and participation in his
studies, taste and arts.

Ermentrude von Adlerstein had, on the contrary, not only never gone
beyond the Kohler's hut on the one side, and the mountain village on
the other, but she never seen more of life than the festival at the
wake the hermitage chapel there on Midsummer-day. The only strangers
who ever came to the castle were disbanded lanzknechts who took
service with her father, or now and then a captive whom he put to
ransom. She knew absolutely nothing of the world, except for a
general belief that Freiherren lived there to do what they chose with
other people, and that the House of Adlerstein was the freest and
noblest in existence. Also there was a very positive hatred to the
house of Schlangenwald, and no less to that of Adlerstein
Wildschloss, for no reason that Christina could discover save that,
being a younger branch of the family, they had submitted to the
Emperor. To destroy either the Graf von Schlangenwald, or her