ly but with a firmness which generous sentiments enable
women to assume even more readily than the stronger sex, when
extraordinary occasions call for the sacrifice of that reserve in which
her feebleness is ordinarily intrenched.

"I know not, Maso, in what manner thou hast learned the tie which connects
me with Sigismund," she said; "but I have no longer any wish to conceal
it. Be he the son of Balthazar, or be he the son of a prince, he has
received my troth with the consent of my honored father, and our fortunes
will shortly be one. There might be forwardness in a maiden thus openly
avowing her preference for a youth; but here, with none to own him,
oppressed with his long-endured wrongs, and assailed in his most sacred
affections, Sigismund has a right to my voice. Let him belong to whom else
he may, I speak by my venerable father's authority, when I say he belongs
to us."

"Melchior, is this true?" cried the Doge.

"The girl's words are but an echo of what my heart feels," answered the
baron, looking about him proudly, as if he would browbeat any who should
presume to think that he had consented to corrupt the blood of Willading
by the measure.

"I have watched thine eye, Maso, as one nearly interested in the truth,"
continued Adelheid, "and I now appeal to thee, as thou lovest thine own
soul, to disburthen thyself! While thou may'st have told some truth, the
jealous affection of a woman has revealed to me that thou hast kept back
part. Speak, then, and relieve the soul of this venerable prince from
torture,"

"And deliver my own body to the wheel! This may be well to the warm
imagination of a love-sick girl, but we of the contraband have too much
practice in men uselessly to throw away an advantage."

"Thou mayest have confidence in our faith. I have seen much of thee
within the last few days, Maso, and I wish not to think thee capable of
the bloody deed that hath been committed on the mountain, though I fear
thy life is only too ungoverned; still I will not believe that the hero of
the Leman can be the assassin of St. Bernard."

"When thy young dreams are over, fair one, and thou seest the world under
its true colors, thou wilt know that the hearts of men come partly of
Heaven and partly of Hell."

Maso laughed in his most reckless manner as he delivered this opinion.

"'Tis useless to deny that thou hast sympathies," continued the maiden
steadily; "thou hast in secret more pleasure in serving than in