or several weeks
prior to this time, having arrived from Germany in the latter part of
July. He was somewhat of a favorite with the people with whom he
associated, and being of a free and jovial disposition had made many
friends during his limited residence in the city. As he is to bear an
interesting part in the sequence of this narrative a few words may
not be out of place in regard to his antecedents.

The father of Bucholz, who was a veterinary surgeon of some
prominence in Schweigert, had reared his children in comparative
comfort, and had provided them with a liberal education.

The early years of young Bucholz had been spent with an uncle, who
was very fond of him, and delighted to have him near his person. This
uncle was a brother of his father, and very late in life had married
a lady of large fortune, but whose appearance was not at all
prepossessing. As William grew into manhood he entered the army and
became connected with the "Brunswick Hussars."

Here he distinguished himself principally by leading a life of
dissipation and extravagance, which made him an object of remark in
his regiment. There were many wild spirits among his comrades, but
none who displayed such an irrepressible and reckless disposition as
William Bucholz. His uncle, loving him as a son, and whose union had
been blessed with no children, forgave his follies and liquidated his
debts without a murmur, but shook his head frequently in a doubtful
manner, as rumors reached him of some new exploit in which William
had been a leading spirit, or some fresh scandal in which he was a
prominent participant.

The family of Bucholz, with that weakness which sometimes
characterizes the relative of the wealthy, soon began to display a
coolness and dislike toward the wife of the uncle, and as no children
were born to them, they looked forward with certainty to inheriting
the vast wealth of their childless relative, without seeming to
regard the rights or interests of the wife, who, in Germany as well
as in America, frequently exercises a potent influence in the
disposition of her husband's affairs.

That this conduct was displeasing to the woman who had brought so
much wealth into the family may readily be imagined, and being
possessed of sufficient spirit to resent the affronts put upon her,
she did not tamely submit to be thus ignored by the supercilious
relatives of her husband, but determined to be revenged upon them in
a manner which she kne