—“One more campaign,” said Erwin to his mistress, the first time that he saw her after holding this conversation with old Melthal, “one more campaign under the Emperor’s banners, in whose service I am at present engaged; and then will I hasten back to lay my laurels at the feet of my Rosanna, confess my love for her, and fix my habitation with her in that quarter of the globe, which her fancy shall prefer. If she thinks proper still to reside in the shades of her native vallies, there too will I take up my abode: if she rather desires to see the world (which in truth has its charms and can show some scenes, with which even these enchanting solitudes must not come in competition) perhaps her happy Erwin may succeed in procuring for her there a situation better suited to her merits, than that which she must fill in the obscurity of these retired mountains.”— —“Dear Erwin,” interrupted Rosanna, “speak no more of this; speak not of my merits, or of removing me to the great world! Ah! why must you needs yourself go thither? Is it not enough to make me hate that world, that it soon must rob me of your society? and alas! who knows, whether you will return from that wild tumult, which I only know by description, with sentiments as kind and as honest and true an heart, as you will bear away with you!”— Poor Rosanna was bathed in tears, while she made these representations. She had had dreams, and omens, and forebodings, which promised nothing good, and which her lover soon banished by means, which every lover (the false as well as the true) equally practises on similar occasions. But Erwin was true as the truest; and his oaths were heard and registered in the Book of Eternity by the Angel, who suffers no perjury to escape unpunished. There was one person in the world, with whom Rosanna had been too long accustomed to share all her joys and all her sorrows, all her hopes and all her fears, not to make her feel uneasy under the profound secrecy, which she had hitherto imposed on herself respecting her attachment: that person was Mary. In fact, she had already suffered some distant hints to escape her, that she had a secret to communicate; and at length she summoned up all her resolution, and (with Erwin’s approbation) set forward one morning for the Convent of Engelberg, determined to lay her whole heart open to her sister’s inspection.