Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/18

 I remember little of my early years, it seems, that I have vague visions of an age, when were spent whole days in gathering flowers, to adorn my sister’s head and breast, from the precipitous bank that descends to the lake, when, at night, I was lulled half trembling, to sleep by the tales of my foster-mother concerning ogres and spirits from the death. But all this is indistinct. When about six years of age, I was removed to the house of Berchtold. He called me son, and if the tenderest care and the greatest sacrifices could entitle him to the name of father, which I gave him, it was not wrongfully bestowed. One of the first circumstances which I can remember, is that one day, while sitting with him upon a bank,, near the church-yard, gazing on the scene around, and watching the white sails which gleamed upon the lake beneath our feet, I threw my arms around his neck, and asked him, “Why they called me orphan?” He told me that my