(or rather, she from him) for safety. He thought it very
probable that she would likewise fly to Switzerland. Yet, knowing that
there was the attraction of many friends for her at Meran, he conceived
that he should act more prudently by throwing himself on that line, and
he sped Jacob Baumwalder along the Valtelline by Val Viola, up to Ponte
in the Engadine, with orders to seize her if he could see her, and have
her conveyed to Cles, in Tyrol. Vittoria being only by the gentlest
interpretation of her conduct not under interdict, an unscrupulous
Imperial officer might in those military times venture to employ the
gendarmerie for his own purposes, if he could but give a plausible colour
of devotion to the Imperial interests.

The chasseur sped lamentingly back, and Weisspriess, taking a guide from
the skirting hamlet above Edolo, quitted the Val Camonica, climbed the
Tonale, and reached Vermiglio in the branch valley of that name,
scientifically observing the features of the country as he went. At
Vermiglio he encountered a brother officer of one of his former
regiments, a fat major on a tour of inspection, who happened to be a week
behind news of the army, and detained him on the pretext of helping him
on his car--a mockery that drove Weisspriess to the perpetual reply, 'You
are my superior officer,' which reduced the major to ask him whether he
had been degraded a step. As usual, Weisspriess was pushed to assert his
haughtiness, backed by the shadow of his sword. 'I am a man with a
family,' said the major, modestly. 'Then I shall call you my superior
officer while they allow you to remain so,' returned Weisspriess, who
scorned a married soldier.

'I aspired to the Staff once myself,' said the major. 'Unfortunately, I
grew in girth--the wrong way for ambition. I digest, I assimilate with a
fatal ease. Stout men are doomed to the obscurer paths. You may quote
Napoleon as a contrary instance. I maintain positively that his day was
over, his sun was eclipsed, when his valet had to loosen the buckles of
his waistcoat and breech. Now, what do you say?'

'I say,' Weisspriess replied, 'that if there's a further depreciation of
the paper currency, we shall none of us have much chance of digesting or
assimilating either--if I know at all what those processes mean.'

'Our good Lombard cow is not half squeezed enough,' observed the major,
confidentially in tone. 'When she makes a noise--quick! the pail at her
udders and work aw