oldiers
and been carried to the convent in Constance, where she and her youngest
child now remained with the two older daughters.

Heinz, deeply agitated by the news, exclaimed: "Uncle Ramsweg, our kind
second father, also in the grave without my being able to press his
brave, loyal hand in farewell! And Maria, our singing bird, our nimble
little squirrel, with those grave, world-weary Sisters! And my mother!
You, too, like every one, love her, Cousin--and you know her. She who has
been accustomed to command, and to manage the house and the lands, who
like a saint dried tears far and near amid trouble and deprivation--she,
deprived of her own strong will, in a convent! Oh, Cousin, Cousin! To
hear this, and not be able to rush upon the rabble who have robbed us of
the home of our ancestors, as a boy crushes a snail shell! Can it be
imagined? No Castle Schorlin towering high above the lake on the cliff at
the verge of the forest. The room where we all saw the light of the world
and listened to our mother's songs destroyed; the sacred chamber where
the father who so lovingly protected us closed his eyes; the chapel where
we prayed so devoutly and vowed to the Holy Virgin a candle from our
little possessions, or, in the lovely month of May, brought flowers to
her from our mother's little garden, the cliff, or the dark forest. The
courtyard where we learned to manage a steed and use our weapons, the
hall where we listened to the wandering minstrels, in ruins! Gone, gone,
all gone! My mother and Maria weeping prisoners!"

Here his cousin broke in to show him that love was leading him to look on
the dark side. His mother had chosen the convent for her daughter's sake;
she was by no means detained there by force. She could live wherever she
pleased, and her dowry, with what she had saved, would be ample to
support her and Maria, in the city or the country, in a style suited to
their rank.

This afforded Heinz some consolation, but enough remained to keep his
grief alive, and his voice sounded very sorrowful as he added: "That
lessens the bitterness of the cup. But who will re build the ancient
castle? Who will restore our uncle? And the Emperor, my beloved, fatherly
master, dying of grief! Our Hartmann dead! Washed away like a dry branch
which the swift Reuss seizes and hurries out of our sight! Too much, too
hard, too terrible! Yet the sun shines as brightly as before! The
children in the street below laugh as merrily as eve