Leopold received my preserver with marked coldness, and concluded his expressions of gratitude with enquiring—“by what strange though fortunate accident he had arrived there so speedily and so exactly at the time, when his assistance was most wanted?”—Ethelbert in his answer talked much of the good angels who watch over the favourites of Heaven, which my uncle heard without any great appearance of satisfaction; and as soon as the Count of Carlsheim had taken his departure, I received a very serious lecture respecting him. My uncle was inclined to believe, that the accident which had lately alarmed my palfrey, and the fire which had thrown me under Ethelbert’s protection, were both devices intended to bind me to him by the chains of gratitude. It was at least certain, that no sooner had my accident taken place, than the bridal procession disappeared; and the fire had done no other damage, than consuming part of the arras with which my anti-chamber was hung. —“If the Count of Carlsheim is anxious to win your affections,” said my uncle, “why does he not take the straight road to obtain them? why does he not explain his views respecting you to _me_? there was a time, when I should not have refused you to him, and in which I intended to have done an act of justice by making him once more lord over the possessions of his ancestors, by giving him the hand of Urania, the future heiress of Carlsheim and Sargans.”— I knew not, what intelligence or what observations could have induced Count Leopold (who was generally so much inclined to think well of every one) so soon to view Ethelbert’s actions in an unfavourable light. As for myself, I gave these accusations by no means implicit confidence; and I strove to find excuses for the conduct of a man, who every time that I saw him made a stronger impression on my heart, and who daily rendered it more difficult for me to suspect him of any thing wrong. Ethelbert of Carlsheim was unfortunate, and had been deprived of the greatest part of those possessions, which ought to have been his birth right; this alone would have been a sufficient reason for my viewing him with interest; but how much was that interest increased by the discovery, that he employed the little power, which he still possest, in relieving the misfortunes of others; and that by the protection which he granted the opprest, he had himself incurred the animosity of many powerful foes? what could be more noble and more generous than such a proceeding, and how was it possible to suppose, that a man who could act thus, could ever deserve the most distant appearance of suspicion?