ter--"that whenever a much-trodden path traverses a country, its
people catch the blood as well as the opinions of those who travel it,
after the manner that tares are scattered and sown by the passing winds.
Here has the St. Bernard been a thoroughfare since the time of the Romans,
and thou wilt find as many races among those who dwell on the way-side as
there are villages between the convent and Vevey. It is not so with you of
the Upper Valais, Herr Chatelain; there the pure race exists as it came
from the other side of the Rhine, and honored and preserved may it
continue for another thousand years!"

There are few people so debased in their own opinion as, not to be proud
of their peculiar origin and character. The habit of always viewing
ourselves, our motives, and even our conduct, on the favorable side, is
the parent of self-esteem; and this weakness, carried into communities,
commonly gets to be the cause of a somewhat fallacious gauge of merit
among the population of entire countries. The chatelain, Melchior de
Willading, and the Prior, all of whom came from the same Teutonic root,
received the remark complacently; for each felt it an honor to be
descended from, such ancestors; while the more polished and artificial
Italian succeeded in concealing the smile that, on such an occasion, would
be apt to play about the mouth of a man whose parentage ran, through a
long line of sophisticated and politic nobles, into the consuls and
patricians of Rome, and most probably, through these again into the wily
and ingenious Greek, a root distinguished for civilization when these
patriarchs of the north lay buried in the depths of barbarism.

This little display of national vanity ended, the discourse took a more
general turn. Nothing occurred during the entertainment, however, to
denote that any of the company bethought him of the business on which they
had met. But, just as twilight foiled, and the repast was ended, the Prior
invited his guests to lend their attention to the matter in hand,
recalling them from their friendly attacks, their time-worn jokes, and
their attenuated logic, in all of which Peterchen, Melchior, and the
chatelain had indulged with some freedom, to a question involving the life
or death of at least one of their fellow-creatures.

The subordinates of the convent were occupied during the supper with the
arrangements that had been previously commanded; and when Father Michael
arose and intimated to his