Projessor Desor. 247 



stepmother she preferred serving. She was a rather tall, plea- 

 sant-looking girl, with an open though not pretty countenance, 

 who was held in great respect by all the men on account of 

 her strength, which she once used in a very credible manner. 

 A little stranger, with a high, well-brushed cylinder hat, at- 

 tempted to flirt with her in a country-like fashion. Looking 

 upon him at first with some amused astonishment, she settled 

 the question by quietly taking hold of his waist with both her 

 hands. Then she lifted up the little amorous man as one does 

 a baby, and ramming his precious beaver against the low ceil- 

 ing so that it went down over the nose of the stunned little 

 fellow, she went away laughing. 



When the weather was not favourable we were occupied at 

 home ; Mrs. Corvin with painting in water colours, and I 

 with learning German, for which I had engaged a teacher from 

 Eorschach. Corvin had discovered in the castle an old library 

 full of curious books, into which he dived with all the zeal of 

 an antiquarian. Salm wrote his Diary in Mexico, which was 

 published some time after, myself adding to it a part of ray 

 own diary. 



Visitors were not wanting, for many persons we knew passed 

 through Rorschach and stayed there a few days. Amongst 

 others came an old comrade of Salm's in the Austrian army. 

 Baron Hauser, with his pretty wife, the daughter of the Trieste 

 banker, and a colonel from Bregenz paid us now and then a 

 visit. The same did a Baron Alten (a staunch Welf, who 

 followed the fortunes of his deposed king), with his daughter, 

 an agreeable girl. 



Parties to Bregenz, Ragatz, Heiden, and St. Gall interrupted 

 now and then our monotonous but rather pleasant life, which 

 would have satisfied me still more if the unsettled state of 

 Felix's affairs had not troubled my mmd and embittered all 

 enjoyment. My husband went from Rorschach to Munich 

 and Vienna to bring about some arrangement, but without 

 effect ; and from Schloss Anholt we did not receive much 

 comfort either. 



In the first days of August, Mrs. Corvin resolved to pay a 

 visit to a friend of her youth, the celebrated savant, Professor 

 Edward Desor, who lived near Xeufchatel, and she invited me 

 to accompany her. Switzerland is not Mexico, and I need 

 not describe what I saw. Though the weather was not very 



