nd Stramen.

"I sincerely wish it were ended," said Gilbert, in reply to a vehement
denunciation just pronounced by his companion. "I could willingly
forgive all the injuries I have received at their hands, when I remember
the kindness of the Lady Margaret."

The priest looked quickly up in the young man's face, but Gilbert was
gazing with an abstracted air upon the blue outline of the beautiful
Lake of Constance, which just began to appear to the south.

"It were far better," he said, commanding the youth's attention by
taking his hand--"it were far better to forgive them when you remember
the prayer of your dying Jesus for His persecutors, than out of
gratitude to the ordinary courtesy of a pitying damsel."

Gilbert made no direct reply, nor did he return the glance of his
friend, which he well knew was upon him.

"I could wish," he began, after a considerable pause, "before leaving
your hospitable roof, to have expressed to the Lady Margaret my deep
sense of the interest she deigned to display in my regard, and which I
fear has done more to soften my feelings toward her father, than the
nobler and holier motive you have mentioned."

There was a humility in this that pleased the good missionary; but he
saw with pain and uneasiness the direction which the ardent mind of the
youth was evidently taking, and instantly rejoined:

"Did you know the Lady Margaret better, you would spare yourself that
regret. In her charitable attention to your wants, she overcame a
natural repugnance to yourself. She would rather miss than receive any
return you can make, and is always more inclined to set a proper value
upon the solid and eternal recompense of God, than attach any importance
to the empty and interested gratitude of man."

Gilbert's eyes were bent again upon the Lake of Constance. They were now
at the foot of a long, high hill, which they began to ascend in
silence. Gilbert pressed his horse rather swiftly up the gradual ascent,
and they soon gained the summit.

"What is the Danube to that splendid lake!" cried the mercurial
stripling; "and what is there in all the lordship of Stramen to vie with
this!"

The view now opened might excuse his excitement, even in a less
interested person. The Castle of Hers, though built for strength,
presented a very different appearance from that of Stramen: its outline
was light and graceful, and it seemed rather to lift up than cumber the
tall hill that it so elegantly crowned.