Young ladies, perhaps, look timidly round them at this or that young man, carrying on a silent examination, whether they would like to have him for a husband; but whoever has a daughter or a female ward to care for, takes a wider circle in her survey.  And so it fared at this moment with Charlotte, to whom, as she thought of how they had once sat side by side in that summer-house, a union did not seem impossible between the Captain and Ottilie.  It had not remained unknown to her, that the plans for the advantageous marriage, which had been proposed to the Captain, had come to nothing.

Charlotte went on up the cliff, and Ottilie carried the child.  A number of reflections crowded upon the former.  Even on the firm land there are frequent enough ship-wrecks, and the true, wise conduct is to recover ourselves, and refit our vessel at fast as possible.  Is life to be calculated only by its gains and losses?  Who has not made arrangement on arrangement, and has not seen them broken in pieces?  How often does not a man strike into a road and lose it again!  How often are we not turned aside from one point which we had sharply before our eye, but only to reach some higher stage.  The traveler, to his greatest annoyance, breaks a wheel upon his journey, and through this unpleasant accident makes some charming acquaintance, and forms some new connection, which has an influence on all his life.  Destiny grants us our wishes, but in its own way, in order to give us something beyond our wishes.

Among these and similar reflections they reached the new building on the hill, where they intended to establish themselves for the summer.  The view all round them was far more beautiful than could have been supposed; every little obstruction had been removed; all the loveliness of the landscape, whatever nature, whatever the season of the year had done for it, came out in its beauty before the eye; and already the young plantations, which had been made to fill up a few openings, were beginning to look green, and to form an agreeable connecting link between parts which before stood separate.

The house itself was nearly habitable; the views, particularly from the upper rooms, were of the richest variety.  The longer you looked round you, the more beauties you discovered.  What magnificent effects would not be produced here at the different hours of day—­by sunlight and by moonlight?  Nothing could be more delightful than to come and live there, and now that she found all the rough work finished, Charlotte longed to be busy again.  An upholsterer, a tapestry-hanger, a painter, who could lay on the colors with patterns, and a little gilding, were all which were required, and these were soon found, and in a short time the building was completed.  Kitchen and cellar stores were quickly laid in; being so far from the castle, it was necessary to have all essentials provided; and the two ladies with the child went up and settled there.  From this residence, as from a new centre point, unknown walks opened out to them, and in these high regions the free, fresh air and the beautiful weather were thoroughly delightful.