e same
extraordinary model as that in the foreground of the portrait, and
filled with what I supposed to be Johannisberger. "Come," he said,
abruptly, "let us drink! It is early--but let us drink. It is _indeed_
early," he continued, musingly, as a cherub with a heavy golden hammer
made the apartment ring with the first hour after sunrise: "It is
_indeed_ early--but what matters it? let us drink! Let us pour out an
offering to yon solemn sun which these gaudy lamps and censers are
so eager to subdue!" And, having made me pledge him in a bumper, he
swallowed in rapid succession several goblets of the wine.

"To dream," he continued, resuming the tone of his desultory
conversation, as he held up to the rich light of a censer one of the
magnificent vases--"to dream has been the business of my life. I have
therefore framed for myself, as you see, a bower of dreams. In the heart
of Venice could I have erected a better? You behold around you, it is
true, a medley of architectural embellishments. The chastity of Ionia
is offended by antediluvian devices, and the sphynxes of Egypt are
outstretched upon carpets of gold. Yet the effect is incongruous to
the timid alone. Proprieties of place, and especially of time, are
the bugbears which terrify mankind from the contemplation of the
magnificent. Once I was myself a decorist; but that sublimation of folly
has palled upon my soul. All this is now the fitter for my purpose. Like
these arabesque censers, my spirit is writhing in fire, and the delirium
of this scene is fashioning me for the wilder visions of that land
of real dreams whither I am now rapidly departing." He here paused
abruptly, bent his head to his bosom, and seemed to listen to a sound
which I could not hear. At length, erecting his frame, he looked
upwards, and ejaculated the lines of the Bishop of Chichester:

_"Stay for me there! I will not fail_
_To meet thee in that hollow vale."_

In the next instant, confessing the power of the wine, he threw himself
at full-length upon an ottoman.

A quick step was now heard upon the staircase, and a loud knock at
the door rapidly succeeded. I was hastening to anticipate a second
disturbance, when a page of Mentoni's household burst into the room, and
faltered out, in a voice choking with emotion, the incoherent words,
"My mistress!--my mistress!--Poisoned!--poisoned! Oh, beautiful--oh,
beautiful Aphrodite!"

Bewildered, I flew to the ottoman, and endeavored t