d, but not under any mistaken opinions of her own situation.
The presence of Sigismund, so far as she was concerned, was purely
accidental, although she could not prevent the pleasing idea from
obtruding--an idea so grateful to her womanly affections and maiden
pride--that the young soldier, who was in the service of Austria, and who
had become known to her in one of his frequent visits to his native land,
had gladly seized this favorable occasion to return to his colors.
Circumstances, which it is not necessary to recount, had enabled Adelheid
to make the youth acquainted with her father, though the interdictions of
her aunt, whose imprudence had led to the accident which nearly proved so
fatal, and from whose consequences she had been saved by Sigismund,
prevented her from explaining all the causes she had for showing him
respect and esteem. Perhaps the manner in which this young and imaginative
though sensible girl was compelled to smother a portion of her feelings
gave them intensity, and hastened that transition of sentiment from
gratitude to affection, which, in another case, might have only been
produced by a more open and prolonged association. As it was, she scarcely
knew herself how irretrievably her happiness was bound up in that of
Sigismund, though she had so long cherished his image in most of her
day-dreams, and had unconsciously admitted his influence over her mind and
hopes, until she learned that they were reciprocated.

The Signor Grimaldi appeared on one end of the terrace, as Adelheid de
Willading descended at the other. The old nobles had separated late on
the previous night, after a private and confidential communication that
had shaken the soul of the Italian, and drawn strong and sincere
manifestations of sympathy from his friend. Though so prone to sudden
shades of melancholy, there was a strong touch of the humorous in the
native character of the Genoese, which came so quick upon his more painful
recollection, as greatly to relieve their weight, and to render him, in
appearance at least, a happy, while the truth would have shown that he was
a sorrowing man. He had been making his orisons with a grateful heart, and
he now came forth into the genial mountain air, like one who had relieved
his conscience of a heavy debt. Like most laymen of the Catholic
persuasion, he thought himself no longer bound to maintain a grave and
mortified exterior, when worship and penitence were duly observed, and he
j