embrace of her overjoyed but wondering husband. She lived and prospered many years after this strange adventure, and bore her lord three children after her interment.

But it is said that her sojourn among the dead had deprived her of a faculty which is supposed to distinguish men from the brute creation-never again was she known to laugh, nor did even the slightest resemblance of a smile again visit her lips, even on occasions when she experienced and expressed the greatest pleasure. The representation of her strange resurrection was sculptured on her tomb, but it is now defaced; and the traveller looks equally in vain for the carved figure of the black horse, formerly let into the wall of their house, in the New-market, which recorded the part taken by that noble animal in the strange history of Richmuth von der Aducht.

THE SEVEN SISTERS OF SCHONBERG.

In the narrow gorge of the Rhine, just below Oberwesel, the traveller may notice, near the left bank of the river, a cluster of seven rocks, forming a detached and somewhat remarkable group. If he thinks, however, that these are ordinary stones, such as streets are paved with, or houses built with, he will be greatly mistaken.

In the olden time the neighbouring castle of Schönberg was the abode of a long line of counts of that name, powerful and haughty nobles, who thought even royal blood hardly equal to the time-honoured pretensions of their race; and, indeed, they had, on many occasions, connected themselves by marriage with more than one sovereign house. It was, therefore, with

feelings of sorrow, not unmixed with anger, that the proud Count Hugo, having no son, found himself destined to be succeeded in the honours and possessions of the family by a distant relation. He had no fewer than seven daughters. Bertha, the eldest, had the lofty stature and commanding aspect of one whom it would well befit to share the hardship and glory of a warrior's career; and yet there were many who would prefer the light figure and delicate grace of the sunnyhaired Irmengarde, the Grecian outline of whose countenance was said to have captivated the high and mighty elector of Mayence. Nor was it easy to gaze unconcerned on the dazzling whiteness that overspread the cheerful features of the light-hearted Amelia, whose tall and rounded form, and laughing blue eye, contrasted strangely with the calm and melancholy aspect of the thoughtful Cunigunda. There was something inconceivably piquant in the glittering black eye and pouting lip of Melanie, but darker yet was Adelgund, the tallest of the seven. Her sable tresses and prominent features gave her more the air of a daughter of the South, and her lustrous black eyes gleamed not like those of the children of the Rhine; yet the German blood reappeared in all its clearness in the youngest, Ida, whose auburn tresses, light blue eyes, clear complexion, and somewhat substantial figure, though she had only just completed her sixteenth year, would seem to indicate pretty clearly the land of her nativity. The last two, though not esteemed beauties of the same pretensions as their sisters, had nevertheless few equals on the river.

Counts and barons and knights, old and young, came trooping from far and near to drink with the Count and flirt with the daughters of Schönberg. The Cat and the Mouse, and

many other grim masses of masonry, ending in "fels” and "berg" and "stein," all contributed their quota of gaiety to the hospitable mansion; and even the melancholy Pfalz itself, that lies like an immovable ark on the breast of the everrolling waters, furnished the lightest dancer and the sweetest singer that frequented those lordly halls.

The lonely and isolated existence, too, which he led in the island fortress of which he had the charge, had given Herbert, the captain of the Pfalz, at times a turn for romance and poetry; and this, in connexion with the good qualities above mentioned, and the most imperturbable good temper, ever insured him a high place in the consideration of the young ladies.

Owing also to the peculiarity of his abode, he had acquired, by constant practice, great skill as an angler, which recommended him much to the favour of the Count, who had taken to that gentle sport in his old age with great ardour. In short, no one was greeted with a heartier welcome at the gate of Schönberg than Herbert; and as the two residences were within sight of one another, and his own not particularly attractive, he availed himself largely of his good fortune, and, like the poor moth, fluttered about the flame until it consumed him.

I have already said that the castle was perpetually filled with all the young nobles and chieftains of the land, and many of them of course fell deeply in love with one or other of the sisters. The brilliant festivities of Schönberg were not all joy and gladness; and those old walls, that rang to the lighthearted accents of revelry, could also have told of many a bitter sigh, of many a gloomy resolve, of many an unheeded

prayer, the work of those fair sisters. Unmatched as they were in personal beauty, gifted with talents in an unusual degree, and with manners of an indescribable charm, yet each differing from the others so much both in appearance and disposition that it would be difficult to conceive a dream of loveliness that might not have been realized in one or other of the seven, yet were they alike in this one respect, that from the eldest to the youngest, with the solitary exception of their attention to their father, (the only good quality about them,) there was within each of those fair breasts, not the heart of woman, but the heart of a stone.

Bertha, who had reached her twenty-fifth year, had already spurned from her feet six despairing lovers; and of the numbers that had sued and sighed for her sisters, not one had succeeded in obtaining the return he coveted. They had contracted also a jeering and contemptuous manner of rejecting their admirers, inexpressibly galling to the unsuccessful suitor, which, though it might drive him half mad, did not, however, prevent fresh wooers from starting up constantly, inasmuch as scenes like these are not such as the persons concerned take much delight in narrating for the entertainment or instruction of their friends, so no man was forewarned of his fate till the bolt was sped.

It was with a savage pleasure that those unfeeling sisters used to talk over the despair of each succeeding victim; and few who looked on those lovely features would have deemed that so much cruelty and so much duplicity lurked beneath. It was thus that, utterly unconscious of the prospect before him, poor Herbert suffered himself to become the slave of a violent and engrossing passion for the dark-eyed and intel

lectual Cunigunda. His peculiar situation, too, was calculated to add to the intensity of his love, for the time that he was absent from Schönberg was spent in the unbroken loneliness of his river tower, and it does not require a very active imagination to conceive how his fancy peopled the narrow vaulted chambers of that quaint edifice; and whether it was that their tastes and pursuits were in some respects congenial, or that she really liked him as much as she was capable of liking any body, or what is more probable again, that he stuck to her side with the tenacity of a leech, this much is clear, that Herbert and Cunigunda were always together, and seemed, in short, to be inseparable lovers.

Herbert, however, buoyant with hope and full of confidence in his day-dreams of happiness, waited impatiently until a favourable occasion should furnish him with the courage to grasp the prize that seemed to his sanguine eyes to be already within his reach; and when the day and the hour came, and under the shadow of one of the ancestral oaks of Schönberg, he prayed, with all the freshness and all the earnestness of a young heart, that the beautiful creature that stood like a vision of light before him, would suffer his life and his fortune to be devoted to her happiness, he was stung almost to madness by the cold-hearted tone of pitiless mockery in which her refusal was couched.

Rushing in a state of distraction from her presence, he wandered idly for some time to and fro about the woods, avoiding all he met, but still, some how or other, he kept unconsciously hovering about the fatal spot where his hopes had been so recklessly dashed to the earth. His attention was at last attracted by light bursts of women's laughter, that