ture of motives that were silently exercising
their long-established influence over the heart of his really
well-intentioned companion.

"So long as thou speakest of the wisdom of respecting men's opinions, and
the danger of wrecking thy daughter's happiness by running counter to
their current, I agree with thee to the letter; but, to me, it seems
possible so to place the affair, that the world shall imagine all is in
rule, and, by consequence, all proper. If we can overcome ourselves,
Melchior, I apprehend no great difficulty in blinding others."

The head of the Bernois dropped upon his breast, and he rode a long
distance in that attitude, reflecting on the course it most became him to
pursue, and struggling with the conflicting sentiments which troubled his
upright but prejudiced mind. As his friend understood the nature of this
inward strife, he ceased to speak, and a long silence succeeded the
discourse.

It was different with those who followed. Though long accustomed to gaze
at their native mountains from a distance, this was the first occasion on
which Adelheid and her companion had ever actually penetrated into their
glens, or journeyed on their broken and changing faces. The path of St.
Bernard, therefore, had all the charm of novelty, and their youthful and
ardent minds were soon won from meditating on their own causes of
unhappiness, to admiration of the sublime works of nature. The cultivated
taste of Adelheid, in particular, was quick in detecting those beauties of
a more subtle kind which the less instructed are apt to overlook, and she
found additional pleasure in pointing them out to the ingenuous and
wondering Christine, who received these, her first, lessons in that grand
communion with nature which is pregnant with so much unalloyed delight,
with gratitude and a readiness of comprehension, that amply repaid her
instructress. Sigismund was an attentive and pleased listener to what was
passing, though one who had so often passed the mountains, and who had
seen them familiarly on their warmer and more sunny side, had little to
learn, himself, even from so skilful and alluring a teacher.

As they ascended, the air became purer and less impregnated with the
humidity of its lower currents; changing, by a process as fine as that
wrought by a chemical application, the hues and aspect of every object in
the view. A vast hill-side lay basking in the sun, which illuminated on
its rounded swells a hundred lon