The good effects of this system were wonderfully apparent. The
young lady was a pattern of docility and correctness. While
others were wasting their sweetness in the glare of the world,
and liable to be plucked and thrown aside by every hand, she was
coyly blooming into fresh and lovely womanhood under the
protection of those immaculate spinsters, like a rosebud blushing
forth among guardian thorns. Her aunts looked upon her with pride
and exultation, and vaunted that, though all the other young
ladies in the world might go astray, yet thank Heaven, nothing of
the kind could happen to the heiress of Katzenellenbogen.
But, however scantily the Baron Von Landshort might be provided
with children, his household was by no means a small one; for
Providence had enriched him with abundance of poor relations.
They, one and all, possessed the affectionate disposition common
to humble relatives--were wonderfully attached to the baron, and
took every possible occasion to come in swarms and enliven the
castle. All family festivals were commemorated by these good
people at the baron's expense; and when they were filled with
good cheer they would declare that there was nothing on earth so
delightful as these family meetings, these jubilees of the heart.
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