"
"Thou wast speaking of thy mild and excellent sister?--"
"Well hast thou described her! Christine is mild, and more than
modest--she is meek. But what can meekness itself do to palliate such a
calamity? Desirous of averting the stigma of his family from all he could
with prudence, my father caused my sister, like myself, to be early taken
from the parental home. She was given in charge to strangers, under such
circumstances of secrecy, as left her long, perhaps too long, in ignorance
of the stock from which she sprang. When maternal pride led my mother to
seek her daughter's society, the mind of Christine was in some measure
formed, and she had to endure the humiliation of learning that she was one
of a family proscribed. Her gentle spirit, however, soon became reconciled
to the truth, at least so far as human observation could penetrate, and,
from the moment of the first terrible agony, no one has heard her murmur
at the stern decree of Providence. The resignation of that mild girl has
ever been a reproach to my own rebellious temper, for, Adelheid, I cannot
conceal the truth from thee--I have cursed all that I dared include in my
wicked imprecations, in very madness at this blight on my hopes! Nay, I
have even accused my father of injustice, that he did not train me at the
side of the block, that I might take a savage pride in that which is now
the bane of my existence.
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