’Twas the peaceful cottage of a younger William and a younger Amabel, the descendants of that Tell, who offered up the tyrant Gessler as a sacrifice to the insulted liberties of Helvetia: here among a crowd of blooming sons and daughters two lovely girls were remarked, whose appearance made it evident, that their origin was not the same with that of their play-mates. It is true, that they called themselves their sisters, and were persuaded, that in fact they were so; but yet the truth was quite otherwise. The real children of the family were healthy and strong like the generality of their kindred; but these two girls were fair and delicate, and rather resembled beautiful exotic plants surrounded by meadow flowers, to which they condescended to allow the honour of a common origin: and however they might themselves esteem the merits of these simple children of nature, to all other eyes it was plain, that their own perfections were far superior. I have entitled this narrative “the Sisters without a Name,” for it was long before they knew the family, from which they sprung; and when it was at length revealed to them, they found, that their rights were in the possession of strangers. Nay, at the moment that I am writing, they are still denied the privilege of calling themselves by the name of an illustrious House, whose dignity would be disgraced by the inferior station, in which they are at present compelled to exist. In the early and happiest period of their lives, the Sisters were totally unconscious of the magnitude of their claims, and their minds encouraged no wish to be greater than they were. Happy in the humble sphere for which they believed themselves ordained, happy in the shades of their mountains, in the tranquillity of their flowery vallies and glassy lakes, they considered the scenes which surrounded them, and which appeared to them so enchanting, as a beautiful specimen of the whole world; nor did they ever trouble their heads with a thought, whether beyond those mountains, and on the outside of those vallies, there existed objects which were deserving of a wish to be acquainted with. This fortunate unconsciousness was assiduously preserved in their minds by those, to whose care they were confided; and on winter-evenings, when William Tell had collected all his children around him (among whom the Sisters were still reckoned) the stories, with which he entertained them, always respected some hero or heroine of ancient Helvetia; so that nothing was made known to them except the country which gave them birth, and they were led to consider nothing as of importance but what related to that country, because of that country alone had they ever been told any thing important. In the same manner were they instructed respecting the concerns of human life: every illustration was selected from the lower or middling classes of society and the manners and customs of the great would have been totally unknown