Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/222

 They were soon after joined by the Baron. He introduced them to several of his friends; was sedulous to show his esteem, by every gratification he could procure to them.—Sought every possible mode of entertainment, and delicately avoided any reference to the former unhappy situation of the Count, or his irreparable loss of the lady Eugenia.

Once only that day they saw the young Baron; but they found by the conversation, when he appeared at the dinner table, that he spent his hours chiefly in the library. They remarked his father's extreme solicitude to draw him out, and to amuse him; but the few marks of cheerfulness, which now and then broke off, were evidently forced, and the effects of complaisance only.—After the dinner hour, they saw no more of him.

On the second day of their residence with the Baron, when his son had withdrawn from the table, turning to his guests with a suppressed sigh—"Although you are too polite my friends, to express any curiosity, yet 'tis impossible but that you must observe the pe-