“My story, Florinda, opens upon one of those soft summer twilights which hang over this incomparable valley to-day, as they did centuries gone by.  Two figures rested near a soft bed of flowers in the broad grounds of Botztez Castle.  The luxuriant, curling hair of delicate auburn that strayed so freely over the neck and shoulders of the female figure, betrayed her to be the lovely daughter of Herr Karl Etzwell; while the reader would have recognized at once in the person by her side, the fine athletic figure of Egbert.  They sat in tender proximity to each other, and Bettina was listening to Egbert’s eloquent story of the olden times, and of the many chivalric deeds for which the neighborhood of this spot was celebrated.  He told her, too, of legends connected with the very towers and battlements that now surrounded them, until at last the lateness of the hour warned them that they must part; and the gallant Egbert, pressing her hand tenderly to his lips, bade her a brief farewell as he said, and would meet her there again with the twilight hour on the following day.

“Scarcely had he left her side when a decrepit figure, dressed in as shabby garb as ever clothed a beggar woman, tottled towards her, and in saddest tones besought the fair girl to come a few steps from the castle walls to aid her in carrying her sick infant, who she feared was dying.  The chords of tender sympathy were at once touched and Bettina followed the old woman outside the walls, and beyond an angle of the ruins a few rods, when the person who had so excited her commiseration suddenly stopped, and tossing off the wretched rags he wore, he stood before her the athletic leader of banditti, Petard!”

“How frightful!” said Florinda, interrupting him.

“The faint scream Bettina uttered,” continued Carlton, “was smothered by his ready adroitness; and seizing the fainting girl, as though she was an infant, the robber bore her away to a spot concealed by the darkness, where several of his confederates met him, as had been preconcerted; and in a few minutes after Egbert had left her side, Bettina, all unconscious, was being carried fair away to the almost impregnable stronghold of the robbers.

“It would be vain to attempt a description of the consternation and misery of her father when it was found that his child-she who was everything to him; whom he loved better than life itself-was lost.  Whither to seek her no one knew.  The most improbable places were searched.  Egbert, who was last seen with her, was sent for; but he could give them no information.  He supposed, of course, that she returned directly home after he parted with her.  Every conceivable means were adopted to discover some trace of the missing girl, but all in vain, and the most tantalizing anguish took possession of every bosom.  Two days had passed in this fruitless and agonizing search, when a note was delivered at the castle which threw light upon her disappearance.  The purport of the note was to this effect: