"
The discourse continued, but it became secret, and of the most
confidential kind. The rest of the party soon sought their beds, though
lamps were burning in the chambers of the two old nobles to a late hour of
the night.
Chapter IX.
Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door:
What is the matter?
Hamlet.
The American autumn, or fall, as we poetically and affectionately term
this generous and mellow season among ourselves, is thought to be
unsurpassed, in its warm and genial lustre, its bland and exhilarating
airs, and its admirable constancy, by the decline of the year in nearly
every other portion of the earth. Whether attachment to our own fair and
generous land, has led us to over-estimate its advantages or not, and
bright and cheerful as our autumnal days certainly are, a fairer morning
never dawned upon the Alleghanies, than that which illumined the Alps, on
the reappearance of the sun after the gust of the night which has been so
lately described. As the day advanced, the scene grew gradually more
lovely, until warm and glowing Italy itself could scarce present a
landscape more winning, or one possessing a fairer admixture of the grand
and the soft, than that which greeted the eye of Adelheid de Willading,
as, leaning on the arm of her father, she issued from the gate of Blonay,
upon its elevated and gravelled terrace.
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