The Dove in the Eagle's Nest

THE upper lattices of a tall, narrow window were open, and admitted the view, of first some richly-tinted vine leaves and purpling grapes, then, in dazzling freshness of new whi...

CHRISTINA SOREL awoke to a scene most unlike that which had been wont to meet her eyes in her own little wainscoted chamber high in the gabled front of her uncle’s house. It was...

LIFE in Schloss Adlerstein was little less intolerable than Christina’s imagination had depicted it. It was entirely devoid of all the graces of chivalry, and its squalor and co...

ERMENTRUDE had by no means recovered the ground she had lost, before the winter set in; and blinding snow came drifting down day and night, rendering the whole view, above and b...

Surely it was time for her to return home, though she should be more sorry to leave the mountain castle than she could ever have believed possible. She entreated her father to t...

MIDSUMMER-DAY arrived, and the village of Adlerstein presented a most unusual spectacle. The wake was the occasion of a grand fair for all the mountain-side, and it was an under...

When she heard that the marriage was to be a secret, she had not understood that Eberhard was by no means disposed to observe much more caution than mere silence. A rough, thoug...

Yet it was well that the snow came early, for it was the best defence of the lonely castle from any attack on the part of the Schlangenwaldern, the Swabian League, or the next h...

CHRISTINA’S mental and bodily constitution had much similarity—apparently most delicate, tender, and timid, yet capable of a vigour, health, and endurance that withstood shocks...

that all the serfs of Adlerstein were collected to collect their lady’s hay to be stored for the winter’s fodder of the goats, and of poor Sir Eberhard’s old white mare, the onl...

“We must be before the sun!” said Ebbo, who was on his feet, beginning to dress himself. “Hush, and come! Do not wake the mother. It must be ere she or aught else be astir! Thy...

FOR the first time in her residence at Adlerstein, now full half her life, the Freiherrinn Christina ventured to send a messenger to Ulm, namely, a lay brother of the convent of...

AFTER having once accepted Master Gottfried, Ebbo froze towards him and Dame Johanna no more, save that a naturally imperious temper now and then led to fitful stiffnesses and m...

ONE summer evening, when shooting at a bird on a pole was in full exercise in the tilt-yard, the sports were interrupted by a message from the Provost that a harbinger had broug...

EBBO trusted that his kinsman of Wildschloss was safe gone with the Court, and his temper smoothed and his spirits rose in proportion while preparations for a return to Adlerste...

THE reconciliation made Ebbo retract his hasty resolution of relinquishing all the benefits resulting from his connection with the Sorel family, and his mother’s fortune made it...

The snow melted, the torrent became a flood, then contracted itself, but was still a broad stream, when one spring afternoon Ebbo showed his brother some wains making for the fo...

THE stone was quarried high on the mountain, and a direct road was made for bringing it down to the water-side. The castle profited by the road in accessibility, but its impregn...

BY the early September sunrise the thicket beneath the pass was sheltering the twenty well-appointed reiters of Adlerstein, each standing, holding his horse by the bridle, ready...

THE star and the spark in the stubble! Often did the presage of her dream occur to Christina, and assist in sustaining her hopes during the days that Ebbo’s life hung in the bal...

THE snow fell all night without ceasing, and was still falling on the morrow, when the guest explained his desire of paying a short visit to the young Baron, and then taking his...

SLOWLY and painfully did Ebbo recover from his swoon, feeling as if the means of revival were rending him away from his brother. He was so completely spent that he was satisfied...

“What, with such a yesterday, and such a morrow for you? while, chance what may, I can but lie still. I thought I must call, if I were still so wretched, when the last moonbeam...

THE clear sunshine of early summer was becoming low on the hillsides. Sparkling and dimpling, the clear amber-coloured stream of the Braunwasser rippled along its stony bed, win...

THE year 1531 has begun, and Schloss Adlerstein remains in its strength on the mountain side, but with a look of cultivation on its environs such as would have amazed Kunigunde....