within; and bouquets, richly and tastefully arranged, placed in vases
filled with scented earth, hung from the branches forming the roof.
Fruit, too, was there--the purple grape, the ripe red orange, the
paler lemon, the lime, the pomegranate, the citron, all of which the
vale afforded, adorned the board (which for those seven days was
always spread within the tent), intermingled with cakes made by Marie.

This was one of the festivals for which many of the secret race would
visit the vale; but it so happened that, this year, Manuel, his child,
and their retainers, kept it alone--a source of disappointment and
anxiety to the former, whose health was rapidly (but still to his
child almost invisibly) failing. At the close of the solemn fast which
always preceded by five days this festival of rejoicing, he had had
a recurrence of his deathlike fits of insensibility, longer and
more alarming than usual; but he had rallied, and attributed it so
naturally to his long fast, that alarm once more gave place to hope
in the heart of his daughter. Not thus, however, felt her
father--convinced that death could not be long delayed, he but waited
for his nephew's appearance and acknowledged love for his cousin,
at once to give her to him, and prepare her for the worst. Parental
anxiety naturally increased with every hour that passed, and Ferdinand
appeared not.

It was the eve of the Sabbath; one from which in general all earthly
cares and thoughts were banished, giving place to tranquil and
spiritual joy. The father and daughter were alone within their lovely
tent, but both so wrapt in evidently painful thought, that a strange
silence usurped the usual cheerful converse. So unwonted was the
anxious gloom on Manuel's brow, that his child could bear it no
longer, and flinging her arms round his neck, she besought him in the