"
The officer smiled and repeated his reverences, always declining to
receive the offered papers; for the aged father indulged the overflowing
of his feelings in a manner that would have awakened even duller
sympathies.
"The lady has youth and a tender parent of her side," he said; "these are
much when health fails us."
"She is indeed too young to sink so early!" returned the father, who had
apparently forgotten his immediate business, and was gazing with a tearful
eye at the faded but still eminently attractive features of the young
female, who rewarded his solicitude with a look of love; "but thou hast
not seen I am the man I represent myself to be."
"It is not necessary, noble baron; the city knows of your presence, and I
have it, in especial charge, to do all that may be grateful to render the
passage through Geneva, of one so honored among our allies, agreeable to
his recollections."
"Thy city's courtesy is of known repute," said the Baron de Willading,
replacing his papers in their usual envelope, and receiving the grace like
one accustomed to honors of this sort:--"art thou a father?"
"Heaven has not been niggardly of gifts of this nature: my table feeds
eleven, besides those who gave them being.
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