The first child is a son, and called William. The second is a daughter, Miss Laura, our heroine, the “Swiss Heiress,” and the “Bride of Destiny.” She is the “Swiss Heiress” in virtue of a certain “dispensation from the church of Rome, by which the estates of the Baron were to descend to his first catholic child by his second marriage” and she becomes the “Bride of Destiny” because the Baron has very properly selected for her a husband, without consulting her Heiress-ship about the matter. This intended husband is one Count Laniski, young, good-looking, noble, valiant, wise, accomplished, generous, amiable, and possessed of a thousand other good qualities—all of which, of course, are just a thousand better reasons why the Bride of Destiny, being a heroine, will have nothing to do with him. Accordingly, at eight years old, she grows melancholy and interesting, patronizes the gipsies, curses the Count Laniski, talks about “fate, fore-knowledge, and free-will,” and throws aside her bread-and-butter for desperation and a guitar. In spite of all she can do, however, the narrative gets on very slowly, and we are upon the point of throwing the lady (banjo and all) into the street, when the Count himself makes his appearance at the Castle, and thereby frightens her to such a degree that, having delivered a soliloquy, she runs off with her “Brother William” to America. “Brother William,” however, is luckily killed at the siege of Yorktown, and the “Bride of Destiny” herself is recaptured by her family, the whole of whom, having nothing better to do, have set out in pursuit of her—to wit—her half brother Albert, (who is now Baron de Rheinswald, the old Baron being dead) Clermont a croaking old monk, and Madam de Montelieu a croaking old somebody else. These good people, it seems, are still determined that the “Swiss Heiress” shall be the “Bride of Destiny”—that is to say, the bride of the Count Laniski. To make matters doubly sure too on this head, the old Baron has sworn a round oath on his death-bed, leaving the “Swiss Heiress” his “eternal curse” in the event of her disobedience.