On the other hand, the little saloon, with the dressing-room and bed-room of la belle Barbérie, were in a state of the most studied arrangement. Not an article of furniture was displaced, a door ajar, or a window open. The pavilion had evidently been quitted by its ordinary passage, and the door had been closed in the customary manner, without using the fastenings. The bed had evidently not been entered, for the linen was smooth and untouched. In short, so complete was the order of the place, that, yielding to a powerful natural feeling, the Alderman called aloud on his truant niece, by name, as if he expected to see her appear from some place, in which she had secreted her person, in idle sport. But this touching expedient was vain. The voice sounded hollow through the deserted rooms; and though all waited long to listen, there came no playful or laughing answer back. “Alida!” cried the burgher, for the fourth and last time, “come forth, child; I forgive thee thy idle sport, and all I have said of disinheritance was but a jest. Come forth, my sister’s daughter, and kiss thy old uncle!” The Patroon turned aside, as he heard a man so known for his worldliness yielding to the power of nature; and the lord of a hundred thousand acres forgot his own disappointment, in the force of sympathy. “Let us retire,” he said, gently urging the burgher to quit the place. “A little reflection will enable us to deride what should be done.” The Alderman complied. Before quitting the place, however, its closets and drawers were examined; and the search left no further doubts of the step which the young heiress had taken. Her clothes, books, utensils for drawing, and even the lighter instruments of music, had disappeared. CHAPTER XIII. “—Aye, that way goes the game, Now I perceive that she hath made compare Between our statures—” Midsummer Night’s Dream.