rs. Promise to bestow your hand on Mr. Rascal. Speak my child: will
you not?"

Minna could scarcely summon strength to reply that she had now no
longer any hopes or desires on earth, and that she was entirely at her
father's disposal. Rascal was therefore immediately sent for, and
entered the room with his usual forwardness; but Minna in the meantime
had swooned away.

My detested companion looked at me indignantly, and whispered, "Can you
endure this? Have you no blood in your veins?" He instantly pricked my
finger, which bled. "Yes, positively," he exclaimed, "you have some
blood left!--come, sign." The parchment and pen were in my hand!----

FOOTNOTE TO CHAPTER III:

[Footnote 1: The Nebelkappe, or Tarnkappe (Germ.), which imparts
invisibility to its owner.]

[Illustration: The forest of ancient firs.]

CHAPTER IV

I submit myself to thy judgment, my dear Chamisso; I do not seek to bias
it. I have long been a rigid censor of myself, and nourished at my
heart the worm of remorse. This critical moment of my life is ever
present to my soul, and I dare only cast a hesitating glance at it,
with a deep sense of humiliation and grief. Ah, my dear friend, he who
once permits himself thoughtlessly to deviate but one step from the
right road, will imperceptibly find himself involved in various
intricate paths, all leading him farther and farther astray. In vain he
beholds the guiding-stars of Heaven shining before him. No choice is
left him--he must descend the precipice, and offer himself up a
sacrifice to his fate. After the false step which I had rashly made,
and which entailed a curse upon me, I had, in the wantonness of
passion, entangled one in my fate who had staked all her happiness upon
me. What was left for me to do in a case where I had brought another
into misery, but to make a desperate leap in the dark to save her?--the
last, the only means of rescue presented itself. Think not so meanly of
me, Chamisso, as to imagine that I would have shrunk from any sacrifice
on my part. In such a case it would have been but a poor ransom. No,
Chamisso; but my whole soul was filled with unconquerable hatred to the
cringing knave and his crooked ways. I might be doing him injustice;
but I shuddered at the bare idea of entering into any fresh compact
with him. But here a circumstance took place which entirely changed the
face of things----

I know not whether to ascribe it to e