Oh! believe me, my children, the occupation renders us almost equal to the angels, when we employ our power in bidding some desart teem with harvest, and making it the habitation of happy creatures! I have witnessed many of these transformations, which the Princes of the earth could produce so often and so easily, had they but the inclination. It is in their power to copy the benevolence and might of the Creator; but they chuse rather to imitate his chastising justice, to convert the dwellings of men into heaps of stones, and to pour a deluge of blood over the smiling fruitful vallies. Among the Lords of that part of Switzerland, whose chief possessions now belonged to my uncle, the Counts of Carlsheim held the most distinguished place. Ethelbert (the only remaining descendant of this family, at least as far as we knew) scarcely inherited from his father the tenth part of that property, which once belonged to his forefathers. Grief and vexation had bowed the young man to the ground; he sought to improve his fortune by entering into the service of foreign princes, failed in the attempt, and returned sorrowing to repair the ruined castles which still were his own, and to collect the fragments of his fallen greatness. He had no reason to reproach _himself_ as the author of his distress; yet the consciousness of his situation and the feelings of wounded pride kept him in a constant state of humiliation, which became particularly painful at the sight of those, who had established their prosperity on the ruins of that of the house of Carlsheim. Influenced by these sentiments, did Ethelbert most studiously avoid all intercourse with my uncle. On none of those occasions, which usually bring knights and noblemen together, did he ever appear, if there was the slightest probability of Count Leopold’s being present; and in spite of all my uncle’s endeavours to form an acquaintance with this young warrior, (for whom more reasons than one induced him to feel a lively interest,) still would his efforts in all likelihood have failed of success, had not a circumstance occurred, which absolutely enjoined their meeting, and which was the first link of a connexion which ... dare I say it?... which should never have been formed. Yet the ordinations of eternal Wisdom ought not to be censured: I press my finger on my lip, and am silent.