“As he has never been the parent of an only daughter, father,” answered the smiling Adelheid, for, in her present mood, smiles came easily, “he may not have felt or anticipated all that thou imagin’st.  He knew the prejudices of the world on the subject of noble blood, and they are few indeed, that, having much, are disposed to part with it to him who hath little.”

“The lad reasoned more like an old miser than a young soldier, and I have a great mind to let him feel my displeasure for thinking so meanly of me.  Have we not Willading, with all its fair lands, besides our rights in the city, that we need go begging money of others, like needy mendicants!  Thou hast been in the conspiracy against my character, girl, or such a fear could not have either uneasiness for a moment.”

“I never thought, father, that thou would’st reject him on account of poverty, for I knew our own means sufficient for all our own wants; but I did believe that he who could not boast the privileges of nobility might fail to gain thy favor.”

“Are we not a republic?—­is not the right of the buergerschaft the one essential right in Berne—­why should I raise obstacles about that on which the laws are silent?”

Adelheid listened, as a female of her years would be apt to listen to words so grateful, with a charmed ear; and yet she shook her head, in a way to express an incredulity that was not altogether free from apprehension.

“For thy generous forgetfulness of old opinions in behalf of my happiness, dearest father,” she resumed, the tears starting unbidden to her thoughtful blue eye, “I thank thee fervently.  It is true that we are inhabitants of a republic, but we are not the less noble.”

“Dost thou turn against thyself, and hunt up reasons why I should not do that which thou hast just acknowledged to be so necessary to prevent thee from following thy brothers and sisters to their early graves?”

The blood rushed in a torrent to the face of Adelheid, for though, weeping and in the moment of tender confidence which succeeded her thanksgivings for the baron’s safety, she had thrown herself on his bosom, and confessed that the hopelessness of the sentiments with which she met the declared love of Sigismund was the true cause of the apparent malady that had so much alarmed her friends, the words which had flowed spontaneously from her heart, in so tender a scene, had never appeared to her to convey a meaning so strong, or one so wounding to virgin-pride, as that which her father, in the strength of his masculine habits, had now given them.

“In God’s mercy, father, I shall live, whether united to Sigismund or not, to smooth thine own decline, and to bless thy old age.  A pious daughter will never be torn so cruelly from one to whom she is the last and only stay.  I may mourn this disappointment, and foolishly wish, perhaps, it might have been otherwise; but ours is not a house of which the maidens die for their inclinations in favor of any youths, however deserving!”