ins, flowed through the regions of her soul in gushing and grateful
exuberance? She did not believe that he was dead, but she knew that he was
in danger, and the hope of assisting in his liberation, and the idea of
soothing by tenderness the ills that he might have undergone, elevated and
harmonized the late jarring element of her being. I was not so sanguine as
she as to the result of our voyage. She was not sanguine, but secure; and
the expectation of seeing the lover she had banished, the husband, friend,
heart's companion from whom she had long been alienated, wrapt her senses
in delight, her mind in placidity. It was beginning life again; it was
leaving barren sands for an abode of fertile beauty; it was a harbour after
a tempest, an opiate after sleepless nights, a happy waking from a terrible
dream.

Little Clara accompanied us; the poor child did not well understand what
was going forward. She heard that we were bound for Greece, that she would
see her father, and now, for the first time, she prattled of him to her
mother.

On landing at Athens we found difficulties encrease upon us: nor could the
storied earth or balmy atmosphere inspire us with enthusiasm or pleasure,
while the fate of Raymond was in jeopardy. No man had ever excited so
strong an interest in the public mind; this was apparent even among the
phlegmatic English, from whom he had long been absent. The Athenians had
expected their hero to return in triumph; the women had taught their
children to lisp his name joined to thanksgiving; his manly beauty, his
courage, his devotion to their cause, made him appear in their eyes almost
as one of the ancient deities of the soil descended from their native
Olympus to defend them. When they spoke of his probable death and certain
captivity, tears streamed from their eyes; even as the women of Syria
sorrowed for Adonis, did the wives and mothers of Greece lament our English
Raymond--Athens was a city of mourning.

All these shews of despair struck Perdita with affright. With that sanguine
but confused expectation, which desire engendered while she was at a
distance from reality, she had formed an image in her mind of instantaneous
change, when she should set her foot on Grecian shores. She fancied that
Raymond would already be free, and that her tender attentions would come to
entirely obliterate even the memory of his mischance. But his fate was
still uncertain; she began to fear the worst, and to feel that