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Count Donat’s Daughters.
Emmeline of Sargans to Amabel Melthal.
Perhaps, dear Amabel, you had good reasons for quitting the Castle of Sargans, though filial respect forbids my examining what those reasons were; but have not I reasons equally good for lamenting your departure? oh! never more term me your mistress; that name is painful to my heart and injurious to our friendship. You know well, that I never treated you as really filling that station, to which you were destined, when in the days of our childhood my father first brought you with him to Sargans. You were not my attendant; you were my companion, were my sister! away with the jargon of illustrious ancestry and of humble birth; such distinctions disgrace the lips of Helvetia’s daughters; and in truth, dear Amabel, when all is justly weighed, she who is the daughter of Henric Melthal, the relation of Walter Forest and the pupil of Gertrude Bernsdorf, has far greater cause to be proud of her origin, than one who is the offspring of Donat and Mellusina, and who must blush to name as her grandfather Ethelbert of Carlsheim, the unfortunate and the guilty.
Yet take comfort, Emmeline of Sargans! you too can number some few among the connections of your family, who would not disgrace the best and proudest. The venerable Urania Venosta deigns to bestow on you the names of daughter and of grand-child; what matters it, that her blood does not actually flow in my veins, since her heart feels towards me the affection of a mother?
Never can I prize too highly my good fortune in having gained an interest in the bosom of this admirable matron, and being occasionally permitted to profit by her intercourse!
For this too am I indebted to you, my Amabel! its true, I can still remember well to have seen her in this Castle, while I was yet but a child; I remember well, that she bestowed on me the most affectionate appellations, that she suffered me to repose in her arms, and that when she quitted Sargans, I wept bitterly, and begged, that I might accompany her. But the harshness with which my father repulsed my dear lost sister and myself, whenever we ventured to express a wish that we might see Urania once more, aided by the lapse of years and the volatility of youth, had by degrees nearly effaced all recollection of her; when you, my beloved friend, arrived at the Castle, and recalled to my mind the noble image of Urania. You boasted, that you had resided for some time under her protection, and that she had taken the greatest pains to instill into your young mind lessons of the purest virtue, in order that you might impart them to the two poor orphan sisters, when your father should conduct you to Count Donat’s fortress; a step, to which nothing less powerful than Urania’s influence could have induced Henric Melthal to consent.
That step was the preservation of Amalberga and of myself. Orphans in truth we were! brought up under the tuition of such a father, and associating with his abandoned intimates, what was it probable would become of us? Heaven be thanked, you have saved us, or at least you have saved me. But you are torn from me; and now that you are gone, how difficult should I have found it to remain steady in the way that I ought to pursue, had you not shown me the secret path through the wood which terminates at Urania’s convent. I have already frequently eluded the vigilance of my attendants; I have visited Urania; have always found the doors of her cell open to me, and methinks have never returned, without feeling myself happier and better than when I came.
And all this do I owe to you, and yet in writing to your friend Emmeline, can you resolve to offend her by calling yourself her servant? Amabel, you are my benefactress; while I exist, never will I cease to thank you.