“And notwithstanding this, prejudice is a general master.”

“How canst thou have it otherwise?  Is not a man a man?  Will he not lean as he has been weighed upon?—­does not the tree grow in the way the twig is bent?  No, while I adore justice, Herr Sigismund, as becomes a bailiff, I confess to both prejudice and partiality, mentally considered.  Now, yonder maiden, the pretty Christine, lost some of her grace in my eyes, as no doubt she did in thine, when the truth came to be known that she was Balthazar’s child.  The girl is fair and modest and winning in her way; but there is something—­I cannot tell thee what—­but a certain damnable something—­a taint—­a color—­a hue—­a—­a—­a—­that showed her origin the instant I heard who was her parent—­was it not so with thee?”

“When her origin was proved, but not previously.”

“Ay, of a certainty; I mean not otherwise.  But a thing is not seen any the worse because it is seen thoroughly, although it may be seen falsely when there are false covers to conceal its ugliness.  Particularity is necessary to philosophy.  Ignorance is a mask to conceal the little details that are necessary to knowledge.  Your Moor might pass for a Christian in a mask, but strip him of his covering and the true shade of the skin is seen.  Didst thou not observe, for instance, in all that touches feminine grace and perfection, the manifest difference between the daughter of Melchior de Willading and the daughter of this Balthazar?”

“There was the difference between a maiden of most honored and happy extraction and a maiden most miserably condemned!”

“Nay, the Demoiselle de Willading is the fairer.”

“Nature has certainly been most bountiful to the heiress of Willading, Herr Bailiff, who is scarcely less attractive for her female grace and goodness, than she is fortunate in the accidents of birth and condition.”

“I knew thou couldst not, in secret, be of a different mind from the rest of men!” exclaimed Peterchen in triumph, for he, took the warmth of his companion’s manner to be a reluctant and half-concealed assent to his own proposition.  Here the discourse ended:  for, the earnest conference between Melchior and the Signor Grimaldi having terminated, the bailiff hastened to join his more important guests, and Sigismund was released from an examination that had harrowed every feeling of his soul, while he even despised the besotted loquacity of the man who had been the instrument of his torture.

The separation of Adelheid from her father was anticipated and previously provided for; since the men were expected to resort to the banquet at this hour.  She had continued near Christine and her mother, therefore, without attracting any unusual attention to her movements, even in those who were the objects of her sympathy, a feeling that was so natural in one of her years and sex.  A male attendant, in the livery of her father’s house remained near her person, a protector