ment spread itself over her beauteous countenance, and a stifled cry of joy was the welcome of her heart to me. I forgot St. Petersburgh and Russia altogether; I felt myself transported again to Switzerland. I thought no more of the Countess Barczikoff; I had no other than my Liesli, my sweet adorable Liesli before me.—We put a thousand questions to each other in one breath, to which we neither of us waited for a reply, and it was not until the expiration of half an hour that we could succeed in calming ourselves sufficiently to communicate to each other the events of the past year.
The father of Liesli, the only son of Count Barczikoff, had served in the army which went to Switzerland, where he fell in a severe conflict, at the bridge of Ibach. The count had never sanctioned the marriage of his son with Liesli’s mother, who was a poor Swiss girl from Solothurn, and accordingly, on that account, would never acknowledge her as his daughter-in-law. The hermit, however, who had, previously to her mother’s death, received from herself the full particulars of Liesli’s family affairs, announced to the count her death, and succeeded so far in touching his heart, that, enfeebled as he was by age and declining health, he no longer viewed the prejudices of birth with the same jealous eye as heretofore, and, at length, decided on sending for Liesli, acknowledging her as his grandchild, and the heiress to his large and extensive possessions. Thus he endeavoured to repay with kindners to the child, the severity he had shewn to the mother. The hermit, as was his manner, had never mentioned a single word of all this to Liesli. On the very morning that she had agreed to ascend Mount Rigi with me, he had come early, at two o’clock, and awoke her from sleep, desiring her to follow him. She had candidly confessed to him the appointment she had made with me that morning, but he strictly opposed her meeting me.
Here my little countess skipped over the affair of the pieces of gold, which, in conjunction with the story I had told the
