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The Dove in the Eagle's Nest by Charlotte Mary Yonge
page 53 of 393 (13%)

CHAPTER III: THE FLOTSAM AND JETSAM OF THE DEBATEABLE FORD



Life in Schloss Adlerstein was little less intolerable than
Christina's imagination had depicted it. It was entirely devoid of
all the graces of chivalry, and its squalor and coarseness, magnified
into absurdity by haughtiness and violence, were almost
inconceivable. Fortunately for her, the inmates of the castle
resided almost wholly below stairs in the hall and kitchen, and in
some dismal dens in the thickness of their walls. The height of the
keep was intended for dignity and defence, rather than for
habitation; and the upper chamber, with its great state-bed, where
everybody of the house of Adlerstein was born and died, was not
otherwise used, except when Ermentrude, unable to bear the oppressive
confusion below stairs, had escaped thither for quietness' sake. No
one else wished to inhabit it. The chamber above was filled with the
various appliances for the defence of the castle; and no one would
have ever gone up the turret stairs had not a warder been usually
kept on the roof to watch the roads leading to the Ford. Otherwise
the Adlersteiners had all the savage instinct of herding together in
as small a space as possible.

Freiherrin Kunigunde hardly ever mounted to her daughter's chamber.
All her affection was centred on the strong and manly son, of whom
she was proud, while the sickly pining girl, who would hardly find a
mate of her own rank, and who had not even dowry enough for a
convent, was such a shame and burthen to her as to be almost a
distasteful object. But perversely, as it seemed to her, the only
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