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OR

CHAPTER I.

happened on a very beautiful evening of the year 163–, that a young lover and his mistress, by name Rudolf and Alice, were seated together on the banks of the Lake Constance in Switzerland. The sun had long since vanished behind the mountains, only the rugged pinnacles of the opposite shore on the south still shone with a roseate splendour. Twilight shades had settled dimly in the vallies, where wreaths of white vapour collected, and were slowly mounting towards the pine-tree forests above. Meanwhile, it was delightful to see how the stars, shining out one