bled, offices and constructions of
more importance arcse around its base, inclosing a court. These
necessarily followed the formation of the rock, until, in time, the
confused and inartificial piles, which are now seen mouldering on so many
of the minor spurs of the Alps, were created.

As is usual in all ancient holds, the Rittersaal--the Salle des
Chevaliers--or the knights' hall, of Blonay, as it is differently called
in different languages, was both the largest and the most laboriously
decorated apartment of the edifice. It was no longer in the rude gaol-like
keep that grew, as it were, from the living rock, on which it had been
reared with so much skill as to render it difficult to ascertain where
nature ceased and art commenced; but it had been transferred, a century
before the occurrences; related in our tale, to a more modern portion of
the buildings that formed the south-eastern angle of the whole
construction. The room was spacious, square, simple, for such is the
fashion of the country, and lighted by windows that looked on one side
towards Valais, and on the other over the whole of the irregular, but
lovely declivity, to the margin of the Leman, and along that beautiful
sheet, embracing hamlet, village, city, castle, and purple mountain, until
the view was limited by the hazy Jura. The window on the latter side of
the knights' hall, had an iron balcony at a giddy height from the ground,
and in this airy look-out Adelheid had taken her seat, when, after
quitting her father, she mounted to the apartment common to all the guests
of the castle.

We have already alluded generally to the personal appearance and to the
moral qualities of the Baron de Willading's daughter, but we now conceive
it necessary to make the reader more intimately acquainted with one who is
destined to act no mean part in the incidents of our tale. It has been
said that she was pleasing to the eye, but her beauty was of a kind that
depended more on expression, on a union of character with feminine grace,
than on the vulgar lines of regularity and symmetry. While she had no
feature that was defective, she had none that was absolutely faultless,
though all were combined with so much harmony and the soft expression of
the mild blue eye accorded so well with the gentle play of a sweet mouth,
that the soul of their owner seemed ready at all times to appear through
these ingenuous tell-tales of her thoughts. Still, maidenly reserve sate
in const