The allusion to his lost son caused another cloud to pass athwart the brow of the Genoese.

“Thou seest, Adelheid,” he continued, after a pause—­“for Adelheid will I call thee, in virtue of a second father’s rights—­that we are making our folly respectable, at least to ourselves—­Master Patron, thou hast a well-charged bark!”

“Thanks to your two honors;” answered Baptiste, who stood at the helm, near the group of principal passengers.  “These windfalls come rarely to the poor, and we must make much of such as offer.  The games at Vevey have called every craft on the Leman to the upper end of the lake, and a little mother-wit led me to trust to the last turn of the wheel, which, as you see, Signore has not come up a blank.”

“Have many strangers passed by your city on their way to these sports?”

“Many hundreds, noble gentleman; and report speaks of thousands that are collecting at Vevey and in the neighboring villages.  The country of Vaud has not had a richer harvest from her games this many a year.”

It is fortunate, Melchior, that the desire to witness these revels should have arisen in us at the same moment.  The hope of at last obtaining certain tidings of thy welfare was the chief inducement that caused me to steal from Genoa, whither I am compelled to return forthwith.  There is truly something providential in this meeting!”

“I so esteem it,” returned the Baron de Willading; “though the hope of soon embracing thee was strongly alive in me.  Thou art mistaken in fancying that curiosity, or a wish to mingle with the multitude at Vevey, has drawn me from my castle.  Italy was in my eye, as it has long been in my heart.”

“How!—­Italy?”

“Nothing less.  This fragile plant of the mountains has drooped of late in her native air, and skilful advisers have counselled the sunny side of the Alps as a shelter to revive her animation.  I have promised Roger de Blonay to pass a night or two within his ancient walls, and then we are destined to seek the hospitality of the monks of St. Bernard.  Like thee, I had hoped this unusual sortie from my hold might lead to intelligence touching the fortunes of one I have never ceased to love.”

The Signor Grimaldi turned a more scrutinizing took towards the face of their female companion.  Her gentle and winning beauty gave him pleasure; but, with his attention quickened by what had just fallen from her father, he traced, in silent pain, the signs of that early fading which threatened to include this last hope of his friend in the common fate of the family.  Disease had not, however, set its seal on the sweet face of Adelheid, in a manner to attract the notice of a common observer.  The lessening of the bloom, the mournful character of a dove-like eye, and a look of thoughtfulness, on a brow that he had ever known devoid of care and open as day with youthful ingenuousness, were the symptoms that first gave the alarm to her father, whose previous losses, and whose solitariness, as respects the ties of the world, had rendered him keenly alive to impressions of such a nature.  The reflections excited by this examination brought painful recollections to all, and it was long before the discourse was renewed.