ot trace a resemblance to
yourself in those pure and graceful features, which, even in marble,
breathe the eloquence of love? How charmingly the moonbeams play upon
her brow! how lovingly they linger on her neck of snow!"

He paused, while the murmurs of the fountain seemed to swell to supply
the music of his voice. Then he passed on to a lovely Bachanter with ivy
and vine wreaths on her clustering locks, to a Hebe catching crystal
drops instead of nectar in her lifted cup; and then we turned and looked
at all these classic figures reflected in the mural mirrors and at the
myriad fountains tossing their glittering wreaths, and at the myriad
basins receiving the cooling showers.

"I only regret," said Ernest, "that I had not designed all this
expressly for your enjoyment; that the taste of another furnished the
banquet at which your senses are now revelling."

"But I owe it all to you. You might as well sigh to be the sculptor of
the statues, the Creator of the flowers. Believe me, I am sufficiently
grateful. My heart could not bear a greater burden of gratitude."

"Gratitude!" he repeated, "Gabriella, as you value my love, never speak
to me of gratitude. It is the last feeling I wish to inspire. It may be
felt for a benefactor, a superior, but not a lover and a husband."

"But when all these characters are combined in one, what language can we
use to express the full, abounding heart? Methinks mine cannot contain,
even now, the emotions that swell it almost to suffocation, I am not
worthy of so much happiness. It is greater than I can bear."

I leaned my head on his shoulder, and tears and smiles mingling together
relieved the oppression of my grateful, blissful heart. I really felt
too happy. The intensity of my joy was painful, from its excess.

"This is yours," said he, as we afterwards stood in an apartment whose
vaulted ceiling, formed of ground crystal and lighted above by gas,
resembled the softest lustre of moonlight. The hangings of the beds and
windows were of the richest azure-colored satin, fringed with silver,
which seemed the livery of the mansion.

"And this is yours," he added, lifting a damask curtain, which fell over
a charming little recess that opened into a beautiful flower bed. "This
is a kiosk, where you can sit in the moonlight and make garlands of
poetry, which Regulus cannot wither."

"How came you so familiar with the mysteries of this enchanted palace?
Is it not novel to you, as well