s a thing that centuries might pass and bring no
parallel to, in its beauty and its melancholy truth. But I kept away the
sleep from the lover's eyes, for well I knew that sleep was a tyrant,
that shortened the brief time of waking tenderness for the living, yet
spared him; and one sad, anxious thought of her was sweeter, in spite of
its sorrow, than the brightest of fairy dreams. So I left him awake,
and watching there through the long night, and felt that the children
of earth have still something that unites them to the spirits of a finer
race, so long as they retain amongst them the presence of real love!"

And oh! is there not a truth also in our fictions of the Unseen World?
Are there not yet bright lingerers by the forest and the stream? Do the
moon and the soft stars look out on no delicate and winged forms bathing
in their light? Are the fairies and the invisible hosts but the children
of our dreams, and not their inspiration? Is that all a delusion which
speaks from the golden page? And is the world only given to harsh and
anxious travellers that walk to and fro in pursuit of no gentle shadows?
Are the chimeras of the passions the sole spirits of the universe? No!
while my remembrance treasures in its deepest cell the image of one no
more,--one who was "not of the earth, earthy;" one in whom love was the
essence of thoughts divine; one whose shape and mould, whose heart and
genius, would, had Poesy never before dreamed it, have called forth
the first notion of spirits resembling mortals, but not of them,--no,
Gertrude! while I remember you, the faith, the trust in brighter shapes
and fairer natures than the world knows of, comes clinging to my heart;
and still will I think that Fairies might have watched over your sleep
and Spirits have ministered to your dreams.

CHAPTER III. FEELINGS.

GERTRUDE and her companions proceeded by slow and, to her, delightful
stages to Rotterdam. Trevylyan sat by her side, and her hand was ever
in his; and when her delicate frame became sensible of fatigue, her head
drooped on his shoulder as its natural resting-place. Her father was
a man who had lived long enough to have encountered many reverses of
fortune, and they had left him, as I am apt to believe long adversity
usually does leave its prey, somewhat chilled and somewhat hardened to
affection; passive and quiet of hope, resigned to the worst as to
the common order of events, and expecting little from the best, as an