But before I proceed any further with my story I am bound to introduce you to a person who, as you will soon perceive, is the main cause and reason why I have any story at all to tell. The Baron de Guerre-à-mort had an only daughter. As, from the beginning of time, it has been the constant habit of maidens similarly circumstanced to fall in love with the person most objectionable to their respected father, Mathilde de Guerre-à-mort formed no exception to this most natural and reasonable rule. As a matter of course, she was desperately attached to Horace de St. Aunay, who, for his part, having fallen head over ears in love with her at their first interview, remained in the same condition with unwearied resolution. How they first came to meet I cannot say. One would have supposed that there would have been difficulties, considering the hostility, existing between the two families; but the young lady’s mother having {108}been dead for many years, she enjoyed more liberty than was common to females of her rank and age in those days, and probably met the Count in some of her country rambles after birds’ nests, violets, or blackberries--three things which all young people who have lived much in the country find more or less attractive at certain seasons of the year. However this may be, it is certain that these two individuals met, took a mutual fancy to each other, and would, in all human probability, have been thought by their friends to have been exactly suited, had it not been for the highly respectable feud of which I have already spoken.