I have said “the nearest inhabited village,” because there is, only three miles westward, that is to say in the direction of General Spielsdorf’s schloss, a ruined village, with its quaint little church, now roofless, in the aisle of which are the moldering tombs of the proud family of Karnstein, now extinct, who once owned the equally desolate chateau which, in the thick of the forest, overlooks the silent ruins of the town.

Respecting the cause of the desertion of this striking and melancholy spot, there is a legend which I shall relate to you another time.

I must tell you now, how very small is the party who constitute the inhabitants of our castle.  I don’t include servants, or those dependents who occupy rooms in the buildings attached to the schloss.  Listen, and wonder!  My father, who is the kindest man on earth, but growing old; and I, at the date of my story, only nineteen.  Eight years have passed since then.

I and my father constituted the family at the schloss.  My mother, a Styrian lady, died in my infancy, but I had a good-natured governess, who had been with me from, I might almost say, my infancy.  I could not remember the time when her fat, benignant face was not a familiar picture in my memory.

This was Madame Perrodon, a native of Berne, whose care and good nature now in part supplied to me the loss of my mother, whom I do not even remember, so early I lost her.  She made a third at our little dinner party.  There was a fourth, Mademoiselle De Lafontaine, a lady such as you term, I believe, a “finishing governess.”  She spoke French and German, Madame Perrodon French and broken English, to which my father and I added English, which, partly to prevent its becoming a lost language among us, and partly from patriotic motives, we spoke every day.  The consequence was a Babel, at which strangers used to laugh, and which I shall make no attempt to reproduce in this narrative.  And there were two or three young lady friends besides, pretty nearly of my own age, who were occasional visitors, for longer or shorter terms; and these visits I sometimes returned.

These were our regular social resources; but of course there were chance visits from “neighbors” of only five or six leagues distance.  My life was, notwithstanding, rather a solitary one, I can assure you.

My gouvernantes had just so much control over me as you might conjecture such sage persons would have in the case of a rather spoiled girl, whose only parent allowed her pretty nearly her own way in everything.

The first occurrence in my existence, which produced a terrible impression upon my mind, which, in fact, never has been effaced, was one of the very earliest incidents of my life which I can recollect.  Some people will think it so trifling that it should not be recorded here.  You will see, however, by-and-by, why I mention it.  The nursery, as it was called, though I had it all to myself, was a large room in