While breakfast was prepared for them at the Swan Inn, the
friends walked round the hamlet and came to the neighborhood of the
pretty new house; here, while gazing about him and talking to the
inhabitants, Rodolphe discovered the residence of some decent folk,
who were willing to take him as a boarder, a very frequent custom in
Switzerland. They offered him a bedroom looking over the lake and
the mountains, and from whence he had a view of one of those immense
sweeping reaches which, in this lake, are the admiration of every
traveler. This house was divided by a roadway and a little creek from
the new house, where Rodolphe had caught sight of the unknown fair one's
face.

For a hundred francs a month Rodolphe was relieved of all thought for
the necessaries of life. But, in consideration of the outlay the Stopfer
couple expected to make, they bargained for three months' residence and
a month's payment in advance. Rub a Swiss ever so little, and you find
the usurer. After breakfast, Rodolphe at once made himself at home by
depositing in his room such property as he had brought with him for
the journey to the Saint-Gothard, and he watched Leopold as he set out,
moved by the spirit of routine, to carry out the excursion for himself
and his friend. When Rodolphe, sitting on a fallen rock on the shore,
could no longer see Leopold's boat, he turned to examine the new house
with stolen glances, hoping to see the fair unknown. Alas! he went in
without its having given a sign of life. During dinner, in the company
of Monsieur and Madame Stopfer, retired coopers from Neufchatel, he
questioned them as to the neighborhood, and ended by learning all he
wanted to know about the lady, thanks to his hosts' loquacity; for they
were ready to pour out their budget of gossip without any pressing.

The fair stranger's name was Fanny Lovelace. This name (pronounced
_Loveless_) is that of an old English family, but Richardson has given
it to a creation whose fame eclipses all others! Miss Lovelace had come
to settle by the lake for her father's health, the physicians having
recommended him the air of Lucerne. These two English people had arrived
with no other servant than a little girl of fourteen, a dumb child, much
attached to Miss Fanny, on whom she waited very intelligently, and
had settled, two winters since, with monsieur and Madame Bergmann, the
retired head-gardeners of His Excellency Count Borromeo of Isola Bella
and Isola Madre in