"I experienced all the torments and all the ecstacies of love; my nights were sleepless, my days without repose; the world lay extended more beautifully before me; a charm and a loveliness sprang up every where beneath my footsteps; an impetuous longing hurried me to her; and yet in her presence my heart beat still more madly. "Am I not a child to speak to you so diffusely of my folly? In a few months I disclosed to her my love; with an angel voice she assured me of her attachment; we were betrothed, and--oh, who could participate in my sense of happiness!--in two months we were to be married. How did I reckon up every day and every hour! The tide of time flowed past me in vexatious dilatoriness; I wanted to see it roll along in a foaming torrent at my feet. "At last a messenger reached us with news of my brother. It was a knight from Spain who had seen him in Africa. Corsairs had taken the vessel in which he sailed, and sold him as a slave in Tunis. A very high price was set on his liberty. "We were more pleased than saddened by this news, because we had already taken his death for certain. Clara now dried her tears, and surrendered herself to her joy. She got together the required sum as quickly as possible, and made preparations to travel to her husband. "The stranger knight was in fact returning to Spain, and Clara proposed setting out in his company; while Ida, who found it impossible to part from her friend, resolved to accompany her in knightly costume. "My most urgent expostulations were in vain, and I was at last obliged to yield to their united entreaties. My brother's infant son was consigned to the protection of a convent. They took their departure, and, full of foreboding, my weeping eye followed them. "How I burned with desire to accompany them! but I was entangled in a feud, in which I had promised a friend my succour, and my pledged word bound me to Germany. Ah! in an ill-fated hour they departed; I never beheld them more. "From that moment begins the dark period of my life. I was successful in the feud. Oh, that I had fallen beneath the sword of an enemy, to have escaped long years of torture, and the frightful hours in which I first--oh, forgive me these tears! they still often flow at the remembrance of Ida and my brother: age cannot so blunt our sympathies that pain may not sometimes return with new force to our bosoms. "On their journey Ida was seized with the unhappy fancy of not discovering herself to my brother till they all should have reached their native country again, in order that she might then surprise him the more joyfully as my bride. They arrived in Spain, and sent the required sum to Tunis. The prisoner was liberated; on the wings of affection he hastened over the sea, and forgot on Clara's bosom, in one moment of rapture, the sufferings which he had endured for years.