“Noble or simple,” added the baron, laughing, for he saw that his daughter spoke in sudden pique, rather than from her excellent heart.  Adelheid, whose good sense, and quick recollections, instantly showed her the weakness of this little display of female feeling, laughed faintly in her turn, though she repeated his words as if to give still more emphasis to her own.

“This will not do, my daughter.  They who profess the republican doctrine, should not be too rigid in their constructions of privileges.  If Sigismund be not noble, it will not be difficult to obtain for him that honorable distinction, and, in failure of male line, he may bear the name and sustain the honors of our family.  In any case he will become of the buergerschaft, and that of itself will be all that is required in Berne.”

“In Berne, father,” returned Adelheid, who had so far forgotten the recent movement of pride as to smile on her fond and indulgent parent, though, yielding to the waywardness of the happy, she continued to trifle with her own feelings—­“it is true.  The buergerschaft will be sufficient for all the purposes of office and political privileges, but will it suffice for the opinions of our equals, for the prejudices of society, or for your own perfect contentment, when the freshness of gratitude shall have passed?”

“Thou puttest these questions, girl, as if employed to defeat thine own cause—­Dost not truly love the boy, after all?”

“On this subject, I have spoken sincerely and as became thy child,” frankly returned Adelheid.  “He saved my life from imminent peril, as he has now saved thine, and although my aunt, fearful of thy displeasure, would not that thou should’st hear the tale, her prohibition could not prevent gratitude from having its way.  I have told thee that Sigismund has declared his feelings, although he nobly abstained from even asking a return, and I should not have been my mother’s child, could I have remained entirely indifferent to so much worth united to a service so great What I have said of our prejudices is, then, rather for your reflection, dearest sir, than for myself.  I have thought much of all this, and am ready to make any sacrifice to pride, and to bear all the remarks of the world, in order to discharge a debt to one to whom I owe so much.  But, while it is natural, perhaps unavoidable, that I should feel thus, thou art not necessarily to forget the other claims upon thee.  It is true that, in one sense, we are all to each other, but there is a tyrant that will scarce let any escape from his reign; I mean opinion.  Let us then not deceive ourselves—­though we of Berne affect the republic, and speak much of liberty, it is a small state, and the influence of those that are larger and more powerful among our neighbors rules in every thing that touches opinion.  A noble is as much a noble in Berne, in all but what the law bestows, as he is in the Empire—­and thou knowest we come of the German root, which has struck deep into these prejudices.”