imilar intent, to the heads of his own republic. Justice in that
age was not administered as frankly and openly as in this later period,
its agents in the old world exercising even now a discretion that we are
not accustomed to see confided to them. Her proceedings were enveloped in
darkness, the blind deity being far more known in her decrees than in her
principles, and mystery was then deemed an important auxiliary of power.

With this brief explanation we shall shift the time to the third day from
that on which the travellers reached the convent, referring the reader to
the succeeding chapter for an account of what it brought forth.

Chapter XXVI.

Anon a figure enters, quaintly neat,
All pride and business, bustle and conceit;
With looks unalter'd by these scenes of woe,
With speed that, ent'ring, speaks his haste to go.
He bids the gazing throng around him fly,
And carries fate and physic in his eye.

Crabbe.

There is another receptacle for those who die on the Great St. Bernard,
hard by the convent itself. At the close of the time mentioned in the
last, chapter, and near the approach of night, Sigismund was pacing the
rocks on which this little chapel stands, buried in reflections to which
his own history and the recent events had given birth. The snow that fell
during the late storm had entirely disappeared, and the frozen element was
now visible only on those airy pinnacles that form the higher peaks of the
Alps. Twilight had already settled into the lower valleys, but the whole
of the superior region was glowing with the fairy-like lustre of the last
rays of the sun. The air was chill, for at that hour and season, whatever
might be the state of the weather, the evening invariably brought with it
a positive sensation of cold in the gorge of St. Bernard, where frosts
prevailed at night, even in midsummer. Still the wind, though strong, was
balmy and soft, blowing athwart the heated plains of Lombardy, and
reaching the mountains charged with the moisture of the Adriatic and the
Mediterranean. As the young man turned in his walk, and faced this
breeze, it came over his spirit with a feeling of hope and home The
greater part of his life had been past in the sunny country whence it
blew, and there were moments when he was lulled into forgetfulness, by the
grateful recollections imparted by its fragrance. But when compelled to
turn northward again, and his eye fell on the misty hoary piles