ut two hours at noon, and that the old woman and her
daughter were always occupied within doors, I promised to repeat my
visit every second day until she finally quitted her retreat to be my
own for life. Again the bell was rung; and this time with a violence
that indicated impatience of delay. I tore myself from her arms, darted
to the aperture, and kissing my hand in reply to the graceful waving of
her scarf as she half turned in her own flight, sunk finally from her
view; and at length, after making the same efforts, and mastering the
same obstacles that had marked and opposed my advance, once more found
myself at the point whence I had set out in pursuit of the wounded deer.

"Many were the congratulations I received from my companions, whom I
found waiting my return. They had endured the three hours of my absence
with intolerable anxiety and alarm; until, almost despairing of
beholding me again, they had resolved on going back without me. They
said they had repeatedly sounded their horns; but meeting with no
answer from mine, had been compelled to infer either that I had strayed
to a point whence return to them was impracticable, or that I must have
perished in the abyss. I readily gave in to the former idea; stating I
had been led by the traces of the wounded deer to a considerable
distance, and over passes which it had proved a work of time and
difficulty to surmount, yet without securing my spoil. All this time
there was a glow of animation on my cheek, and a buoyancy of spirit in
my speech, that accorded ill, the first, with the fatigue one might
have been supposed to experience in so perilous a chase; the second,
with the disappointment attending its result. Your father, ever cool
and quick of penetration, was the first to observe this; and when he
significantly remarked, that, to judge from my satisfied countenance,
my time had been devoted to the pursuit of more interesting game, I
felt for a moment as if he was actually master of my secret, and was
sensible my features underwent a change. I, however, parried the
attack, by replying indifferently, that if he should have the hardihood
to encounter the same dangers, he would, if successful, require no
other prompter than the joy of self-preservation to lend the same glow
of satisfaction to his own features. Nothing further was said on the
subject; but conversing on indifferent topics, we again threaded the
mazes of rock and underwood we had passed at an early h