On the other side of the mountain of Halsberg, near the lake of Thun, stands an old Castle belonging to the family of Ravenstein, a family which has been in alliance with the Counts of Carlsheim and Sargans since time immemorial. At the period of which I am now treating, it was entirely deserted. The owner resided in a remote part of Italy, where he had lived on terms of intimacy with Ethelbert; and having himself no occasion for this mouldering castle, he consigned the use of it to his friend the Count of Carlsheim; the use to which the Count applied it, was the only one for which it now appeared to be adapted, the confinement of the innocent. Tedious and fearful was the way which conducted me to my destined abode; but the place itself, which I looked upon as my eternal prison, far exceeded all the horrors, which had struck my imagination so forcibly while approaching it. It was an antient fortress, perched high on the brow of a precipice like an eagle’s nest, which now received the unfortunate Urania. The peculiar form of its architecture announced it to have been raised in the time of Charlemagne; and the incessant howling of the storm, and raging of the billows seemed with every moment to threaten its downfall. I saw it from a distance seemingly suspended on the very brink of a steep and barren rock, which overhung the Lake, and I shuddered, when my conductors pointed it out as my future dwelling! Fool that I was! I flew with rapture into the arms of Ethelbert, where I expected to find an earthly paradise and was deceived: with agony, keen as that of the dying, did I enter Ravenstein Castle ... and was deceived again! Ah! will short-sighted mortals never succeed in comprehending, that that which _appears_, and that which _is_, but rarely coincide? Yet, when we have experienced these deceptions twice or thrice, the experience makes us in future calm and resigned; and we acquire from it that indifference which raises us above the frowns and smiles of fortune, and enables us to repress with equal strength groundless apprehensions and unavailing wishes. During the first days of my confinement I was in truth most wretched. My situation was rendered almost insupportable by the want of every convenience and comfort, and by the tediousness of unbroken solitude. I sighed after society of any kind, even though it had been such as (to judge from its outward appearance) would have promised me but little entertainment. Some days had thus elapsed, when I observed through the bars of my closely-grated window, that a boy apparently between three and four years old, was sometimes suffered to amuse himself by playing in the neglected garden, which I was myself forbidden to visit. The innocent gaiety of the child made an impression on me, which frequently filled my eyes with tears.