alone you must attribute a confidence and friendship towards you, more perhaps than was proper for her to shew.”
My vanity took advantage of this concession of the hermit, and I concluded that Liesli was not wholly indifferent to me.
“Once more,” I inquired somewhat bolder, “can you not inform me of the maiden’s present abode?”
“No!” he answered, in an abrupt and decisive tone.
“Consider it well, holy father; you will have to answer for this denial at some future period, both to the maiden, and also to your own conscience.”
“You hold yourself at a very high price,” he replied, “and, doubtless, you imagine that it will be impossible for Liesli to exist, without you or your dollars. Liesli may, perhaps, at this very moment be far richer than yourself.—You are still young,” he added after a pause, in a milder tone, “you are no doubt infatuated by Liesli’s beauty, and are perhaps thus led to a determination, which, at a later period, you will have cause to repent. Should you, at the expiration of a year, still think of her as at this moment, then come again, and we will communicate together further upon the subject.”
I remained for some time ruminating whether it might not be possible to persuade the old man into a more reasonable stipulation, when he drew from between the folds of his gown, an Alpine rose, most carefully secured—this he presented to me, and said with a smile, “You have just now doubted the uprightness of my conscience; to prove your injustice I present you with this rose which Liesli sends you as a token of remembrance. She plucked it on the road side before we separated, and bedewed it with her tears. I was obliged to promise her that I would faithfully deliver it into your hands. Now, do you doubt my honour?”
“No, no!” I exclaimed joyfully, pressing the rose to my lips,—“and that you may not doubt my honour, I will not even wish to know where Liesli is, but after the twelve months are expired, I will come and demand her from your hands.”
