from a corner of the tent, he made a sort of rude
couch by the side of the fire, heaped fresh fuel on the flames, and
then gently counselled her to recruit her wasted energies by repose.
There was something so candid in his manner, so sincere in the tones of
his voice, as he made his simple offer of hospitality to the stranger
who had taken refuge with him, that the most distrustful woman would
have accepted with as little hesitation as Antonina; who, gratefully
and unhesitatingly, laid down on the bed that he had been spreading for
her at her feet.

As soon as he had carefully covered her with a cloak, and rearranged
her couch in the position best calculated to insure her all the warmth
of the burning fuel, Hermanric retired to the other side of the fire;
and, leaning on his sword, abandoned himself to the new and absorbing
reflections which the presence of the girl naturally aroused.

He thought not on the duties demanded of him by the blockade; he
remembered neither the scene of rage and ferocity that had followed his
evasion of his reckless promise; nor the fierce determination that
Goisvintha had expressed as she quitted him for the night. The cares
and toils to come with the new morning, which would oblige him to
expose the fugitive to the malignity of her revengeful enemy; the
thousand contingencies that the difference of their sexes, their
nations, and their lives, might create to oppose the continuance of the
permanent protection that he had promised to her, caused him no
forebodings. Antonina, and Antonina alone, occupied every faculty of
his mind, and every feeling of his heart. There was a softness and a
melody to his ear in her very name!

His early life had made him well acquainted with the Latin tongue, but
he had never discovered all its native smoothness of sound, and
elegance of structure, until he had heard it spoken by Antonina. Word
by word, he passed over in his mind her varied, natural, and happy
turns of expression; recalling, as he was thus employed, the eloquent
looks, the rapid gesticulations, the changing tones which had
accompanied those words, and thinking how wide was the difference
between this young daughter of Rome, and the cold and taciturn women of
his own nation. The very mystery enveloping her story, which would have
excited the suspicion or contempt of more civilised men, aroused in him
no other emotions than those of wonder and compassion. No feelings of
a lower nature th