lovely plants; even
now all aghast as she was, she observed their brilliant colours and starry
shapes.--"Divine infoliations of the spirit of beauty," she exclaimed,
"Ye droop not, neither do ye mourn; the despair that clasps my heart, has
not spread contagion over you!--Why am I not a partner of your
insensibility, a sharer in your calm!"

She paused. "To my task," she continued mentally, "my guests must not
perceive the reality, either as it regards him or me. I obey; they shall
not, though I die the moment they are gone. They shall behold the antipodes
of what is real--for I will appear to live--while I am--dead." It
required all her self-command, to suppress the gush of tears self-pity
caused at this idea. After many struggles, she succeeded, and turned to
join the company.

All her efforts were now directed to the dissembling her internal conflict.
She had to play the part of a courteous hostess; to attend to all; to shine
the focus of enjoyment and grace. She had to do this, while in deep woe she
sighed for loneliness, and would gladly have exchanged her crowded rooms
for dark forest depths, or a drear, night-enshadowed heath. But she became
gay. She could not keep in the medium, nor be, as was usual with her,
placidly content. Every one remarked her exhilaration of spirits; as all
actions appear graceful in the eye of rank, her guests surrounded her
applaudingly, although there was a sharpness in her laugh, and an
abruptness in her sallies, which might have betrayed her secret to an
attentive observer. She went on, feeling that, if she had paused for a
moment, the checked waters of misery would have deluged her soul, that her
wrecked hopes would raise their wailing voices, and that those who now
echoed her mirth, and provoked her repartees, would have shrunk in fear
from her convulsive despair. Her only consolation during the violence which
she did herself, was to watch the motions of an illuminated clock, and
internally count the moments which must elapse before she could be alone.

At length the rooms began to thin. Mocking her own desires, she rallied her
guests on their early departure. One by one they left her--at length she
pressed the hand of her last visitor. "How cold and damp your hand is,"
said her friend; "you are over fatigued, pray hasten to rest." Perdita
smiled faintly--her guest left her; the carriage rolling down the street
assured the final departure. Then, as if pursued by an enemy, as if wi