The bailiff soon drew his companions around him, in a deep discussion of the nature of the games, during which the Signor Grimaldi betrayed a malicious pleasure in leading on the dogmatic Peter to expose the confusion that existed in his head touching the characters of sacred and profane history.  Even Adelheid was compelled to laugh at the commencement of this ludicrous exhibition, but her thoughts were not long in recurring to a subject in which she felt a nearer and a more tender interest.  Sigismund walked thoughtfully at her side, and she profited by the attention of all around them being drawn to the laughable dialogue just mentioned, to renew the subject that had been so lightly touched on before.

“I hope thy fair and modest sister will never have reason to repent her choice,” she said, lessening her speed, in a manner to widen the distance between herself and those she did not wish to overhear the words, while it brought her nearer to Sigismund; “It is a frightful violence to all maiden feeling to be thus dragged before the eyes of the curious and vulgar, in a scene; trying and solemn as that in which she plights her marriage vows!”

“Poor Christine! her fate from infancy has been pitiable.  A purer or milder spirit than hers, one that more sensitively shrinks from rude collision, does not exist, and yet, on whichever side she turns her eyes, she meets with appalling prejudices or opinions to drive a gentle nature like hers to madness It may be a misfortune, Adelheid, to want instruction, and to be fated to pass a life in the depths of ignorance, and in the indulgence of brutal passions, but it is scarcely a blessing to have the mind elevated above the tasks which a cruel and selfish world so frequently imposes.”

“Thou wast speaking of thy mild and excellent sister?—­”

“Well hast thou described her!  Christine is mild, and more than modest—­she is meek.  But what can meekness itself do to palliate such a calamity?  Desirous of averting the stigma of his family from all he could with prudence, my father caused my sister, like myself, to be early taken from the parental home.  She was given in charge to strangers, under such circumstances of secrecy, as left her long, perhaps too long, in ignorance of the stock from which she sprang.  When maternal pride led my mother to seek her daughter’s society, the mind of Christine was in some measure formed, and she had to endure the humiliation of learning that she was one of a family proscribed.  Her gentle spirit, however, soon became reconciled to the truth, at least so far as human observation could penetrate, and, from the moment of the first terrible agony, no one has heard her murmur at the stern decree of Providence.  The resignation of that mild girl has ever been a reproach to my own rebellious temper, for, Adelheid, I cannot conceal the truth from thee—­I have cursed all that I dared include in my wicked imprecations, in very madness at this blight on my