its wings! its violence is but
sportive. But the heart that hath fallen from the green things of life,
that is without hope, that hath no summer in its fibres, is torn and
whirled by the same wind that but caresses its brethren--it hath no
bough to cling to--it is dashed from path to path--till the winds fall,
and it is crushed into the mire for ever.

The friendless childhood of Nydia had hardened prematurely her
character; perhaps the heated scenes of profligacy through which she had
passed, seemingly unscathed, had ripened her passions, though they had
not sullied her purity. The orgies of Burbo might only have disgusted,
the banquets of the Egyptian might only have terrified, at the moment;
but the winds that pass unheeded over the soil leave seeds behind them.
As darkness, too, favors the imagination, so, perhaps, her very
blindness contributed to feed with wild and delirious visions the love
of the unfortunate girl. The voice of Glaucus had been the first that
had sounded musically to her ear; his kindness made a deep impression
upon her mind; when he had left Pompeii in the former year, she had
treasured up in her heart every word he had uttered; and when any one
told her that this friend and patron of the poor flower-girl was the
most brilliant and the most graceful of the young revellers of Pompeii,
she had felt a pleasing pride in nursing his recollection. Even the
task which she imposed upon herself, of tending his flowers, served to
keep him in her mind; she associated him with all that was most charming
to her impressions; and when she had refused to express what image she
fancied Ione to resemble, it was partly, perhaps, that whatever was
bright and soft in nature she had already combined with the thought of
Glaucus. If any of my readers ever loved at an age which they would now
smile to remember--an age in which fancy forestalled the reason, let
them say whether that love, among all its strange and complicated
delicacies, was not, above all other and later passions, susceptible of
jealousy? I seek not here the cause: I know that it is commonly the
fact.

When Glaucus returned to Pompeii, Nydia had told another year of life;
that year, with its sorrows, its loneliness, its trials, had greatly
developed her mind and heart; and when the Athenian drew her
unconsciously to his breast, deeming her still in soul as in years a
child--when he kissed her smooth cheek, and wound his arm round her
trembling fr