" A slight color suffused the face of Adelheid de Willading, for so was the daughter of the Bernese called, and she advanced a step nearer to the officer.

" Adelheid's cheek resumed its paleness, and she quietly accompanied her father, as he slowly proceeded towards the bark.

Soon after the party which had been so long detained at the water-gate were embarked, Adelheid first learned the reason of the delay.

"So much, Signore," returned Adelheid, who had wept and smiled by turns during the interrupted dialogue of her father and his friend, "that I can repeat most of your youthful histories.

" "I make no doubt, now, thou hast the history of the plunge into the canal, by over-stooping to see the Venetian beauty, at thy finger's ends?" "I do remember some such act of humid gallantry," returned Adelheid, laughing.

"I have heard some light allusion to such an event, too," returned Adelheid, evidently trying to recall the history of the affair, to her mind "but" "Light does he call it, and of small account?

"Thou seest, Adelheid," he continued, after a pause"for Adelheid will I call thee, in virtue of a second father's rightsthat we are making our folly respectable, at least to ourselvesMaster Patron, thou hast a well-charged bark!"

"Thou seest, Adelheid," he continued, after a pause"for Adelheid will I call thee, in virtue of a second father's rightsthat we are making our folly respectable, at least to ourselvesMaster Patron, thou hast a well-charged bark!"

Disease had not, however, set its seal on the sweet face of Adelheid, in a manner to attract the notice of a common observer.

observed Adelheid.

" This sudden address caused both Adelheid and her father to start, for, in despite of pride and the force of reason, it is seldom that we can completely redeem our opinions from the shackles of superstition, and that dread of the unseen future which appears to have been entailed upon our nature, as a ceaseless monitor of the eternal state of being to which all are hastening, with steps so noiseless and yet so sure.

Sigismund was rewarded for this act of good-nature by a smile from Adelheid, who thought his warm interference in behalf of one, seemingly so much his inferior, did no discredit to his rank.

"I doff my beaver to thy Switzerland, friend Melchior," cried the Signor Grimaldi, after directing the attention of Adelheid to one of the peaks of Savoy, of which he had just remarked that it seemed a spot where an angel might love to light in his visits to the earth; "if thou hast much of this, we of Italy must look to it, orby the shades of our fathers!

good Marcelli, we must even own, it is to thee and me!" Adelheid laughed at the old noble's good-humored rhapsody, but, much as she loved her native land, she could not pervert the truth by pretending that the sight was one to be often met with.

" "This is a most singular condition of the mind;" whispered Adelheid to young Sigismund; for both had been deeply attentive listeners to the calm but strong language of the Herr Müller.

" "Is there no Providence, father?" exclaimed Adelheid, a little reproachfully for one of her respectful habits and great filial tenderness.

"My poor enfeebled Adelheid!"

Sigismund alone exerted himself under a sense of his liabilities; but he worked for one that was far dearer to him than gold, and little did he bethink him of any other consequences than those which might befall the precious life of Adelheid de Willading.

This repulse served to keep the peace for the moment, but the wordy war continued with so much acrimony, and with so many unmeasured terms, that Adelheid and her maids, pale and terror-struck by the surrounding scene as they were, gladly shut their ears, to exclude epithets of such bitterness and menace that they curdled the blood.

Even the untamed spirits that had just been bent upon so fierce a sacrifice to their superstitious dread, uttered cries of horror, while the piercing shriek of Adelheid sounded, in that fearful moment, as if beings of super-human attributes were riding in the gale.

Adelheid and her female attendants were already lashed to the principal masts, and ropes were given to the others around her, as indispensable precautions; for the deck of the bark, now cleared of every particle of its freight, was as exposed and as defenceless against the power of the wind, as a naked heath.

Sigismund had heard the heart-rending appeal of Adelheid, and, notwithstanding the awful strife of the elements and the fearful character of the night, he alone breasted the shock on his feet.

He was desperately bent on saving a life so dear to Adelheid, or on dying in the attempt.

He, who could have buffeted an ordinary sea for hours, was now completely exhausted by the unwonted exertions, the deadening influence of the tempest, and the log-like weight of his burthen He would not desert the father of Adelheid, and yet each fainting and useless stroke told him to despair.

All in the bark, passengers as well as crew, took courage at the benignant signs, while Adelheid wept, in gratitude and joy, over the gray hairs of her father.