When the bitterness of the first shock was over, the Sisters found, that they had no reason to consider their situation as at all altered for the worse by the perusal of this insulting letter. It had not been in their contemplation to effect a reconciliation with the Count of Torrenburg; after so much as they had suffered, they no longer indulged a wish for any thing except retirement and repose. Ida’s resentment against her lover, for having offered his hand to Elizabeth, was not yet appeased: and after the injurious suspicions, to which her conduct at the Castle of March had (as she learned from Count Oswald’s letter) given rise, she thought it highly incumbent on her to make no inquiries respecting him. She accordingly resolved to verify the remainder of her sister’s fortunate vision, and re-assume the name of Rosanna Tell.—Constantia for a while refused to follow her example, and declared her determination of hiding herself for ever from the world in the Convent of Engelberg: but Ida besought her, with so much earnestness and with so many tears, “not to deprive her of the society of the only person, who still loved her, and whom she still dared to love,” that Constantia was compelled however reluctantly to give way. A ring of some value, which Ida wore on the day, which made her a captive, and of which Randolf’s respect had prevented his depriving her, purchased a small hut and garden, in which the Countesses of Werdenberg were but too happy to obtain a shelter. Here then they remained in tranquil obscurity, unknowing and unknown: till the decease of the Count of Torrenburg and its consequences compelled them once more to take a part in the world, and again become acquainted with its splendours, and its cares.