those attentions, and that assistance, which at first he had taught me to expect as my right. Alas! how difficult is it for us to know our own hearts. Poor Rhodophil! that brother disposed to love and honour you. You have, by an ill-judged pride, by a duplicity unworthy of yourself and me—you have alienated from those ties that bound us, and compelled him to prefer that "stranger," whose generosity and spirit disdains the idea of an obligation, where his own nobleness of heart is abundantly gratified in making another happy. A stranger! No—Count M. is my brother; we have congenial souls, superior to the ties of blood.
This idea instantly cheered the mind of Ferdinand, and Count Rhodophil, with all his wealth and boasted happiness, neither excited his envy nor regret. His son and old Ernest were the only objects entitled to share his heart in Baden; not a word was mentioned relative to Claudina; and although a tender and sorrowful remembrance of a
