red to me of kind looks and soft voices; and
I had a dreamy consciousness about me of being watched and cared for, but
wherefore, or by whom, I knew not.

From a partly open door which led into a garden, a mild and balmy air
fanned my temples and soothed my heated brow; and as the light curtain
waved to and fro with the breeze, the odor of the rose and the orange-tree
filled the apartment.

There is something in the feeling of weakness which succeeds to long
illness of the most delicious and refined enjoyment. The spirit emerging as
it were from the thraldom of its grosser prison, rises high and triumphant
above the meaner thoughts and more petty ambitions of daily life. Purer
feelings, more ennobling hopes succeed; and dreams of our childhood,
mingling with our promises for the future, make up an ideal existence
in which the low passions and cares of ordinary life enter not or are
forgotten. 'Tis then we learn to hold converse with ourselves; 'tis then we
ask how has our manhood performed the promises of its youth, or have our
ripened prospects borne out the pledges of our boyhood? 'Tis then, in
the calm justice of our lonely hearts, we learn how our failures are but
another name for our faults, and that what we looked on as the vicissitudes
of fortune are but the fruits of our own vices. Alas, how short-lived are
such intervals! Like the fitful sunshine in the wintry sky, they throw one
bright and joyous tint over the dark landscape: for a moment the valley and
the mountain-top are bathed in a ruddy glow; the leafless tree and the dark
moss seem to feel a touch of spring; but the next instant it is past; the
lowering clouds and dark shadows intervene, and the cold blast, the moaning
wind, and the dreary waste are once more before us.

I endeavored to recall the latest events of my career, but in vain; the
real and the visionary were inextricably mingled, and the scenes of my
campaigns were blended with hopes and fears and doubts which had no
existence save in my dreams. My curiosity to know where I was grew now my
strongest feeling, and I raised myself with one arm to look around me. In
the room all was still and silent, but nothing seemed to intimate what I
sought for. As I looked, however, the wind blew back the curtain which
half-concealed the sash-door, and disclosed to me the figure of a man
seated at a table; his back was towards me, but his broad sombrero hat
and brown mantle bespoke his nation; the light blue