[This story is partly translated, partly imitated, from the French. The French author, I suppose, was indebted to some German original. It is no great matter, so the reader likes it. Let us therefore, without further preface, begin.]

You will recollect that, three years ago, we had a dreadful winter throughout Europe. It was severe in those quarters where the climate is usually genial: in the north it was absolutely dreadful. My sister and I were on a visit to our old friend, the Princess N—, at her Lithuanian castle. The thing was arranged that Adelaide was to be married to the Princess's son, Sobieski, who was daily expected from Spain. I suppose my sister looked forward to the arrival with more impatience than the rest of the party; and certainly its male portion were far more interested in hunting the wolf all the morning through the snows, and drinking down the fatigues of the chase in the evening over the fire, than in anything connected with the tender passion.

The wished-for morning arrived at last. Sobieski appeared in the castle of his ancestors amid the acclamations of an admiring peasantry, to be kissed by his mother, shaken hands with by his friends, and looked at, I suppose, by his betrothed. Foreign travel had improved him, and a single year had sufficed to turn the handsome stripling into a fine and noble-looking young man.