His companion--who was much younger, for he did not appear above twenty-eight years of age--was tall, rather thin, and delicate looking, though not at all sickly; his elegant slim stature, and extremely small feet and hands, denoted high birth; his features were fine, his countenance pleasing and intelligent, and stamped with a great expression of gentleness; his blue eyes, light hair, and, above all, the whiteness of his complexion, caused him at once to be recognized as a European belonging to the temperate clime, recently landed in America.
We have said that the two travellers were conversing together, and the language they employed was French; the turn of their phrases, and the want of accent, led to the supposition that they were expressing themselves in their own language.
"Well, Count," said the elder, "do you regret having followed my advice, and instead of being jolted over execrable roads, undertaking this journey on horseback in the company of your humble servant?"
"By Jove! I should be very difficult to please were it so," the one to whom the title of count was given replied. "I have travelled through Switzerland, Italy, and the banks of the Rhine, like everybody else, and must confess that I never before saw such exquisite scenery as that which I have gazed on for the last few days--thanks to you."
"You are a thousand times too polite: the scenery is really very fine, and remarkably diversified," he added, with a sardonic expression which escaped his companion; "and yet," he remarked with a stifled sigh, "I have seen finer, still."
"Finer than this?" the count exclaimed, stretching out his arm, and describing a semicircle in the air; "Oh, sir, that is not possible."
"You are young, my lord," the first speaker resumed with a sad smile; "your tourist travels have only been child's play. This attracts you by the contrast it forms to the other scenery, that is all; having never studied nature except from an opera stall, you did not suppose that it could hold such surprises in reserve for you; your enthusiasm has been suddenly raised to a diapason, which intoxicates you through the strangeness of the contrasts which are incessantly offered you; but if, like myself, you had wandered over the savannahs of the interior, the immense prairies over which the wild children of this country, whom civilisation has despoiled, roam in freedom--like myself, you would only have a smile of contempt for the scenery that surrounds us, and which at this moment you are admiring so conscientiously."