som whereon to pour his
overwhelming passion, even as I am!

'O Nature! why art thou beautiful? My heart requires not, imagination
cannot paint, a sweeter or a fairer scene than these surrounding bowers.
This azazure vault of heaven, this golden sunshine, this deep and
blending shade, these rare and fragrant shrubs, yon grove of green and
tallest pines, and the bright gliding of this swan-crowned lake; my
soul is charmed with all this beauty and this sweetness; I feel no
disappointment here; my mind does not here outrun reality; here there
is no cause to mourn over ungratified hopes and fanciful desires. Is it
then my destiny that I am to be baffled only in the dearest desires of
my heart?'

At this moment the loud and agitated barking of his dogs at some little
distance roused Ferdinand from his reverie. He called them to him,
and soon one of them obeyed his summons, but instantly returned to his
companion with such significant gestures, panting and yelping, that
Ferdinand supposed that Basto was caught, perhaps, in some trap: so,
taking up his gun, he proceeded to the dog's rescue.

To his surprise, as he was about to emerge from a berceau on to a plot
of turf, in the centre of which grew a large cedar, he beheld a lady
in a riding-habit standing before the tree, and evidently admiring its
beautiful proportions.

[Illustration: page094.jpg]

Her countenance was raised and motionless. It seemed to him that it was
more radiant than the sunshine. He gazed with rapture on the dazzling
brilliancy of her complexion, the delicate regularity of her features,
and the large violet-tinted eyes, fringed with the longest and the
darkest lashes that he had ever beheld. From her position her hat had
fallen back, revealing her lofty and pellucid brow, and the dark and
lustrous locks that were braided over her temples. The whole countenance
combined that brilliant health and that classic beauty which we
associate with the idea of some nymph tripping over the dew-bespangled
meads of Ida, or glancing amid the hallowed groves of Greece. Although
the lady could scarcely have seen eighteen summers, her stature was
above the common height; but language cannot describe the startling
symmetry of her superb figure.

There is no love but love at first sight. This is the transcendent and
surpassing offspring of sheer and unpolluted sympathy. All other is the
illegitimate result of observation, of reflection, of compromise, of
comparison,