are
no expense; but he was not aware that any one had introduced such
Asiatic magnificence into our cities. I believe I will describe my own
first impressions, instead of anticipating yours.

The mellowness of autumn still lingered in the atmosphere,--for the
season of the harvest-moon is the most beautiful in the world. The
glorious orb illumined the fairy grotto with a radiance as intense as
the noonday sun's. It clothed the polished whiteness of the marble
statues with a drapery of silver, sparkled on the fountain's tossing
wreaths, converted the spray that rose from the bosom of the marble
basin below into a delicate web of silver lace-work, and its beams,
reflected from walls of looking-glass, multiplied, to apparent infinity,
fountains, statues, trees, and flowers, till my dazzled eyes could
scarcely distinguish the shadow from the substance. The air was perfumed
with the delicious odor of tropic blossoms, and filled with the sweet
murmurs of the gushing fountain.

"Oh! how beautiful! how enchanting!" I exclaimed, in an ecstasy of
admiration. "This must be ideal. Reality never presented any thing so
brilliant, so exquisite as this. Oh, Ernest, surely this is a place to
dream of, not a home to live in?"

"It does, indeed," he answered, "transcend my expectations; but if it
pleases your eye, Gabriella, it cannot go beyond my wishes."

"Oh yes, it delights my eye, but my heart asked nothing but you. I fear
you will never know how well I love you, in the midst of such regal
splendor. If you ever doubt me, Ernest, take me to that island home you
once described, and you will there learn that on you, and you alone, I
rely for happiness."

He believed me. I knew he did; for he drew me to his bosom, and amid a
thousand endearing protestations, told me he did not believe it possible
ever to doubt a love, which irradiated me at that moment, as the moon
did the Fairy Grotto.

He led me around the marble basin that received the waters of the
fountain, and which was margined by sea-shells, from which luxuriant
flowers were gushing, and explained the beautiful figures standing so
white, so "coldly sweet, so deadly fair," in the still and solemn
moonlight. I knew the history of each statue as he named them, but I
questioned him, that I might have the delight of hearing his charming
and poetic descriptions.

"Is this a daughter of Danaus?" I asked, stopping before a young and
exquisitely lovely female, holding up to the f