ETHELINDA
OR,
THE ICE KING'S BRIDE.
ETHELINDA lived alone with her father, Count Constant, in a quiet country place, which had always been her home. Her mother was dead, and her father had long before fallen under the displeasure of his king, and was sentenced to exile for life in this lonely spot. Their castle was gray and venerable, half of it in ruins, and near by grew a grove of melancholy pine-trees; while only some stunted rose-bushes, and a black pool of water, in which swam a few antiquated carp, relieved the monotony of the grounds within the broken walls surrounding their dwelling.
One day a train of liveried servants on horseback, escorting a splendid carriage, stopped on the road near the castle.
Some accident had happened to the springs of the vehicle, and the two passengers inside were forced to take refuge in the house of Ethelinda's father.
Count Constant himself, dressed in a faded court costume, but looking handsome and stately, came forth to receive his unexpected guests. He aided first a tall thin girl to descend from the broken carriage, and then, an elderly dame, richly dressed, who, throwing back her veil, revealed to him the face of his greatest enemy—the vindictive Duchess Amoretta. This person, whom he had not seen for years, had once been in love with Count Constant, and it was because he preferred to her the young lady who afterward became his wife, that the Duchess had poisoned the mind of his sovereign against him. To her he owed his banishment from court, and the loss of his estates. During his wife's lifetime he had heard nothing of the Duchess, and now to have to give her the shelter of his roof was a terrible ordeal.
The Duchess, however, was very kind and considerate in her manner to him. She made many apologies for the accident which had brought her there, and introduced to him her only child, the Lady Finella, who was, truth to tell, the most ill-tempered, pert minx ever seen, and a complete contrast to lovely Ethelinda.
