Oh! pardon me, dear Urania, for expressing myself with such bitterness when writing of one, who with all his faults is still my _father_! my unfortunate situation, and the weakness of human nature must plead my excuse for what I have said above: neither did I mention Count Donat’s future intentions for the purpose of exasperating you against him, but of interesting you in the cause of the innocent girl, on whom my father has fixed his choice. In truth, I need but mention the name of her, whom every engine of force and cunning will be employed to bring into his power, to induce you to exert yourself in defeating his schemes: she is no other than ... Helen of Homburg! she is the daughter of your friend and pupil, Minna; she is the grand-child of the companion of your sorrows, Edith of Mayenfield! she is the betrothed bride of the noble Torrenburg! oh! hasten, if it be possible, to prevent the misery of her, who in the days of my childhood through her instructions and example purchased for herself the strongest claims on my gratitude! for myself, I ask nothing but your blessing to assist me in that profession, which I shall shortly embrace irrevocably, without bestowing one other lingering thought on all the pleasures, which I leave behind me in the world, and of which I have now taken my farewell for ever! _Amabel to Emmeline._ Oh! lady, that you were but with us! your sufferings in your father’s Castle, and your melancholy resolution of taking the veil would soon be effaced from your thoughts completely! Great-ones of the earth, do ye possess even one of those many unconstrained and innocent pleasures, which daily fall to the lot of us, your inferiors? then only do you enjoy the rights of Nature, (to which we, the favourites of that kind mother, have no better claim than yourselves) when you throw aside your fetters, and dare to act like the noble-minded Peregrine of Landenberg. He, though the representative of our feudal lord the powerful Emperor, esteems us as not beneath himself, and lives with us, as were he one of the same humble station.