olling along over the pinnacles of the tower and the high
roof of the church; the everlasting stars lookt down through the midst
of them gleaming with mild serenity; and Emilius drew his thoughts
resolutely away from these nightly abominations, and mused on the
beauty of his unknown. He again entered the peopled streets, and bent
his steps toward the brightly illuminated ballroom, from which voices,
and the rattling of carriages, and now and then, when there was a
pause, the clamorous music, came sounding to his ears.

In the ballroom he was instantly lost amid the streaming throng:
dancers ran round him; masks darted by him to and fro; kettledrums and
trumpets stunned his ears; and it seemed to him as if human life had
melted away into a dream. He walkt along one row after another, and
his eye alone was wakeful, seeking after those beloved eyes and that
fair head with its brown locks, for the sight of which he yearned this
evening more intensely than ever, at the same time that he inwardly
reproacht their adored possessor, for allowing herself to plunge and
be lost in this stormy sea of confusion and folly. 'No!' he said to
himself; 'no heart that loves can willingly expose itself to this
dreary hubbub of noise, in which every longing and every tear is scoft
and mockt at by the wild laughter of pealing trumpets. The whispering
of trees, the murmuring of brooks, the soft notes of the harp, and the
song that gushes forth in all its richness and sweetness from an
overflowing bosom, are the sounds in which love dwells. But this is
the very thundering and shouting of hell in the frenzy of its
despair....'

He saw nothing like her whom he was seeking for; and he could not
possibly give enterance to the notion that her beloved face might
perhaps be lurking behind some odious mask.

He had already ranged up and down the room three times over, and had
in vain run his eyes along all the ladies that were sitting and
unmaskt, when the Spaniard joined him and said: "I am glad you are
come after all; are you looking for your friend?"

Emilius had quite forgotten him; he said however somewhat embarrast:
"In truth I wonder I have not met him here, for his mask is not to be
mistaken."

"Can you guess what the harum-scarum fellow is about?" answered the
young officer. "He never danced at all, and hardly staid ten minutes
in the ballroom: for he soon fell in with his friend Anderson, who is
just come up from the country: their conv