her accident but "the heroism," as she expressed
it, "on my part which had saved her to thank me;" and between her
gratitude and her vivacity, might have given a spectator the idea that
M. Lafontaine was rapidly losing ground with that creature of open lips
and incessant smiles. Her harp was brought, she was an accomplished
performer, and she surprised me by the taste and tenderness with which
she sung a succession of native melodies, collected in her rambles from
Hungary to the Hartz; and from the Mediterranean to the Alps and
Pyrenees. One air struck me as so beautiful that I still remember the
words. They were Garcilasso's:--

"De las casualidades
Y las quimeras,
Nacen felicidades
Que no se esperano.
Siempre se adviente
Que donde esta la vida,
Se halla la muerte."

Then with that quick turn of thought which forms so touching a feature
of the love-poetry of Spain--

"Tus ojos a mis ojos,
Miran atentos,
Y callando se dicen
Sus sentimientos.
Cosa es bien rara,
Que sin hablar se entienden
Nuestras dos almas."

The Spaniard, in his own language, is inimitable. I cannot come nearer
the soft Southern than these ballad lines--

"Alas,--how sweet, yet strange!
Joy in the lap of woe!
Love, all a change!
Like roses laid on snow,
Nipt by the cruel wind;
Love, all unkind!

"Yet, close those eyes of thine,
Else, though no accents fall,
These stealing tears from mine
Will tell thee all!
Strange, that what lips deny,
Is spoken by the telltale eye."

Whether the little seguidilla meant any thing in the lips of the
songstress, I do not presume to say. But the hearts of women, perhaps I
should say of all pretty women, expect admiration as naturally as an
idol receives incense; and as a part of the incense now and then
descends upon the worshippers themselves, the sentiment becomes in some
degree mutual. However, with all my perceptions alive to her merits, and
she had many; the cause of my gallant French friend was perfectly safe
in my hands. I never had much vanity in these matters, and even if I
had, the impression already made by another had made me impregnable, for
the time, to the whole artillery of eyes.

Yet the evening which I thus spent, gave me the first genuine idea of
domestic happiness which I had ever received. I had certainly seen but
little of it at home. There all was either