Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/23

Rh “eagle’s bride” made her blood freeze in her veins. She sunk upon the grass, her senses departed, and on awakening she found herself on the breast of the charming knight on the road to the forest. Her mother in the mean time prepared the breakfast, and Adelaide’s absence being noticed, she sent her youngest daughter to seek her, who went out and did not return. The mother’s heart foreboded nothing good, and, wanting to learn what had made her daughter stay away so long, she also went. The count knew well what had occurred, and his heart beat violently in his breast; he followed to the grass plot where his wife and daughter still sought for Adelaide, calling her by name; he, too, called aloud, though he well knew that all calling and searching was vain. On his way he passed the rose-bush, where he saw something glitter, and when he looked closely found it to be two golden eggs, each weighing an hundred pounds. Now he could not any longer conceal from his wife what had really befallen his daughter.

“Infamous soul vendor! Do you thus sacrifice to Moloch your own flesh and blood?” The count, not generally very eloquent, exculpated himself as he best could by detailing the imminent danger of his life, but the disconsolate mother ceased