antastic splendour of this spectacle, together with the
grandeur of the surrounding palaces, appeared like the vision of a poet
suddenly embodied, and the fanciful images, which it awakened in Emily's
mind, lingered there long after the procession had passed away. She
indulged herself in imagining what might be the manners and delights of
a sea-nymph, till she almost wished to throw off the habit of mortality,
and plunge into the green wave to participate them.

'How delightful,' said she, 'to live amidst the coral bowers and crystal
caverns of the ocean, with my sister nymphs, and listen to the sounding
waters above, and to the soft shells of the tritons! and then, after
sun-set, to skim on the surface of the waves round wild rocks and along
sequestered shores, where, perhaps, some pensive wanderer comes to weep!
Then would I soothe his sorrows with my sweet music, and offer him from
a shell some of the delicious fruit that hangs round Neptune's palace.'

She was recalled from her reverie to a mere mortal supper, and could
not forbear smiling at the fancies she had been indulging, and at her
conviction of the serious displeasure, which Madame Montoni would have
expressed, could she have been made acquainted with them.

After supper, her aunt sat late, but Montoni did not return, and she
at length retired to rest. If Emily had admired the magnificence of the
saloon, she was not less surprised, on observing the half-furnished
and forlorn appearance of the apartments she passed in the way to her
chamber, whither she went through long suites of noble rooms, that
seemed, from their desolate aspect, to have been unoccupied for many
years. On the walls of some were the faded remains of tapestry; from
others, painted in fresco, the damps had almost withdrawn both colours
and design. At length she reached her own chamber, spacious, desolate,
and lofty, like the rest, with high lattices that opened towards the
Adriatic. It brought gloomy images to her mind, but the view of the
Adriatic soon gave her others more airy, among which was that of the
sea-nymph, whose delights she had before amused herself with picturing;
and, anxious to escape from serious reflections, she now endeavoured
to throw her fanciful ideas into a train, and concluded the hour with
composing the following lines:

THE SEA-NYMPH

Down, down a thousand fathom deep,
Among the sounding seas I go;
Play round the foot of ev'ry steep
Whose cliffs above