“Accordingly she quitted the Castle of Werdenberg in the greatest privacy, and concealed herself in my humble habitation. I had been long known to her, and in general had been honoured with her confidence; but she carefully hid from me the real situation of her affairs and the true motives of her conduct. She did not long survive the loss of her husband; grief for his death and vexation at the good fortune of Torrenburg rapidly destroyed her health. On her death-bed she demanded from me a solemn oath, that I would adopt her orphan-daughters for my own, and would bring them up according to the instructions, which after her decease I should find conveyed in writing. “That your prudent mother should prefer your being educated in the lap of rural innocence and tranquillity, rather than in the tumult of the great world, did not surprise me in the least, and I readily gave the oath demanded. But when after her death I learned from her papers the whole extent of my promise, and found myself enjoined to spread the report of your death, and never to disclose your real names, unless circumstances should give you a just claim to the inheritance of your ancestors, my surprise was extreme; and gladly would I have called back the oath, which your mother had carried with her into the grave, and which therefore was irrevocable. “As the case stood, no choice was left me, and I was compelled to obey your mother’s injunctions respecting your education. It greatly comforted me to find, that the secret of your real station was not confined to myself. The deceased Countess mentioned in her will, that the Bishop of Coira and the Abbot of Cloister-Curwald (both of them related to her though but distantly) were aware of her design, and had sanctioned it with their consent; and I concluded, that since her determination had found favour in the eyes of such learned and respectable persons, it must needs have claims to approbation, which my own understanding was too short-sighted to discover. —“It is possible,” it was thus that the Countess exprest herself in her last will; “it is possible, however trifling the probability seems at present, that the family of Torrenburg may become extinct; or that it may please Heaven to deprive it of male heirs, as it has been pleased to deprive the family of Werdenberg. In that case, let the claims of my daughters be advanced, and the documents produced, which are deposited in the hands of the Bishop of Coira, and in the archives of Cloister-Curwald: for the rights of these consolidated families are so ordained, that the daughters can only lay claim to the inheritance of their ancestors, in case no male heir should exist; a regulation, on whose justice I am too little learned to give an opinion, and whose effect I possess too little power to counteract.