I once possest a beloved companion, who was dear to me as myself; Amalberga was her name. She was my sister; but the bonds, which nature had formed between us, were slight in comparison, with those of affection; an affection which I should have felt for her, had I been a princess, and Amalberga a peasant’s daughter. It seems to me as if whole years had elapsed, since we were separated; and yet all circumstances, and particularly the unremitting activity which is still exercised in pursuit of the fugitive, combine to assure me, that only a few months have crept away since her disappearance. You desired, dear mother, to see the history of the poor persecuted girls traced by my pen; I now send you the produce of several sleepless nights, for the night is the only time which I am permitted to call my own. I suspect, you foresaw that the harshness of my jailors would ere long interrupt my personal intercourse with you, and that this was the motive, which induced you to advise my having recourse to my pen. Count Donat suffered his daughters to grow up under his roof in total ignorance of what was owing to themselves and to others. He believed, that he had troubled himself about us quite sufficiently in making us over to the superintendance of a young governess, whose beauty and whose levity were her sole recommendations to favour. It was clearly her interest totally to neglect the heiresses of Carlsheim and Sargans, in order that after our removal from the world she might entirely engross the attentions of our childless father, a considerable portion of whose inheritance she doubted not being able to secure to herself. In what regarded our persons, this neglect did us no detriment. In spite of want and oppression of every kind, the natural strength of our constitutions carried us through all difficulties, and we daily increased in bloom and stature: but the health of our minds was seriously shaken. No principles of virtue were inculcated; no one explained to us the difference between vice and virtue; and surrounded as we were on all sides by the worst examples, we already began to contract the bad habits of our despicable associates. Our father’s enemies were almost as many, as there were noblemen whose domains bordered upon his own. Not one was there amongst their number, who had not been offended by him either personally or indirectly: but of them all his most dangerous and deadly foe was Count Lodowick of Homburg, the husband of that Minna of Mayenfield, for whom your history has taught me to feel such unbounded love and admiration.