The headsman of the canton is
my father; were the fact publicly known, the heartless and obdurate laws
would compel me to be his successor. He has no other child, except a
gentle girl--one innocent and kind as thou."
Adelheid covered her face with both her hands, as if to shut out a view of
the horrible truth. Perhaps an instinctive reluctance to permit her
companion to discover how great a blow had been given by this avowal of
his birth, had also its influence in producing the movement. They who have
passed the period of youth, and who can recall those days of inexperience
and hope, when the affections are fresh and the heart is untainted with
too much communion with the world,--and, especially, they who know of what
a delicate compound of the imaginative and the real the master-passion is
formed, how sensitively it regards all that can reflect credit on the
beloved object, and with what ingenuity it endeavors to find plausible
excuses for every blot that may happen, either by accident or demerit, to
tarnish the lustre of a picture that fancy has so largely aided in
drawing, will understand the rude nature of the shock that she had
received.
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