Oh! Urania, you may chide as you will, but can I _love_ such a father? think, that to him alone I owe the loss of my sister and my friend; think too, that his misdeeds were the sole cause, which robbed me of the heart of the man, on whom my whole earthly happiness depended! Herman hated and despised me only for being the Count of Carlsheim’s daughter; now (as I hear) he is the suitor of another maiden; and all those hopes, with which Amabel so fondly used to flatter me, of one day regaining his good opinion, are lost, and lost for ever. I am at length determined to take the veil; fool that I was, for having delayed to take it long ago! how easily might I have remained in your convent at any one of those times, when I privately contrived to visit you! who would have thought of looking for me there? or if found, who would have been able to force me from the protection of the powerful Domina of Zurich? Alas! these reflections come too late! I dare not quit my chamber, unless accompanied by watchful guards; and no one is suffered to visit me, except my attendants and the odious Abbot of Cloister-Curwald. He is the only person, who combats my resolution of obeying my father, and shutting myself up for ever in the Convent of St. Roswitha. I could almost fancy, that he acts thus, because he knows me disposed to do exactly the contrary of every thing, that he advises. In general these dignified ecclesiastics are much more inclined to speak in favour of religious seclusion than against it. Yet whatever may be his design, it is certain that I _shall_ take the veil, or rather that I _must_ take it. My father’s unaccountable determination of burying his acknowledged heiresses in a cloister, is decided and immoveable. I understand, that weary of his riotous mode of life and of the dominion of unprincipled wantons, he meditates a second marriage, and that he has selected one of the fairest and most virtuous among the Helvetian ladies to enjoy the happiness and honour of enlivening days, embittered by age, infirmities, and remorse.