utiful fashion of his country. He
covered her threshold with the richest garlands, in which every flower
was a volume of sweet passion; and he charmed the long summer night with
the sound of the Lydian lute: and verses, which the inspiration of the
moment sufficed to weave.

But the window above opened not; no smile made yet more holy the shining
air of night. All was still and dark. He knew not if his verse was
welcome and his suit was heard.

Yet Ione slept not, nor disdained to hear. Those soft strains ascended
to her chamber; they soothed, they subdued her. While she listened, she
believed nothing against her lover; but when they were stilled at last,
and his step departed, the spell ceased; and, in the bitterness of her
soul, she almost conceived in that delicate flattery a new affront.

I said she was denied to all; but there was one exception, there was one
person who would not be denied, assuming over her actions and her house
something like the authority of a parent; Arbaces, for himself, claimed
an exemption from all the ceremonies observed by others. He entered the
threshold with the license of one who feels that he is privileged and at
home. He made his way to her solitude and with that sort of quiet and
unapologetic air which seemed to consider the right as a thing of
course. With all the independence of Ione's character, his heart had
enabled him to obtain a secret and powerful control over her mind. She
could not shake it off; sometimes she desired to do so; but she never
actively struggled against it. She was fascinated by his serpent eye.
He arrested, he commanded her, by the magic of a mind long accustomed to
awe and to subdue. Utterly unaware of his real character or his hidden
love, she felt for him the reverence which genius feels for wisdom, and
virtue for sanctity. She regarded him as one of those mighty sages of
old, who attained to the mysteries of knowledge by an exemption from the
passions of their kind. She scarcely considered him as a being, like
herself, of the earth, but as an oracle at once dark and sacred. She
did not love him, but she feared. His presence was unwelcome to her; it
dimmed her spirit even in its brightest mood; he seemed, with his
chilling and lofty aspect, like some eminence which casts a shadow over
the sun. But she never thought of forbidding his visits. She was
passive under the influence which created in her breast, not the
repugnance, but something o