Page:Ernestus Berchtold or the Modern Œdipus.djvu/76

64 imbued with the tales of our foster-mother not to attach some credit to them. My sister’s dreams, in which our mother visited her, my own which always portended misfortune, had enforced upon our minds the belief of the interference of superior beings.

For several nights I returned, but Berchtold was yet, as we imagined, at Thun. My sister and myself left entirely to ourselves, again talked over the feats of Olivieri, and she often asked me to repeat them, seeming with pleasure to rest upon every circumstance regarding him. Foolishly, I also took a pleasure in relating them, for though we had been constantly rivals, there was a frankness, a heedless daring about him, that excited admiration, at the same time, that the warmth of his expressions called forth a reciprocal feeling of love. I knew not then how to discover the sting protruding from the rich scales of the snake. We conversed upon our mother, and my