sleeping. Have you ever observed that the young, seen asleep and by the
morning light, seem much younger even than they are? partly because the
air and the light sleep of dawn bring a fresher bloom to the cheek, and
partly, because the careless negligence and the graceful postures
exclusively appropriated to youth, are forbidden by custom and formality
through the day, and developing themselves unconsciously in sleep, they
strike the eye like the ease and freedom of childhood itself. There, as
I looked upon Isora's tranquil and most youthful beauty, over which
circled and breathed an ineffable innocence,--even as the finer and
subtler air, which was imagined by those dreamy bards who kindled the
soft creations of naiad and of nymph, to float around a goddess,--I
could not believe that aught evil awaited one for whom infancy itself
seemed to linger,--linger as if no elder shape and less delicate hue
were meet to be the garment of so much guilelessness and tenderness of
heart. I felt, indeed, while I bent over her, and her regular and
quiet breath came upon my cheek, that feeling which is exactly the
reverse to a presentiment of ill. I felt as if, secure in her own
purity, she had nothing to dread, so that even the pang of parting was
lost in the confidence which stole over me as I then gazed.

I rose gently, went to the next room, and dressed myself; I heard my
horse neighing beneath, as the servant walked him lazily to and fro. I
re-entered the bed-chamber in order to take leave of Isora; she was
already up. "What!" said I, "it is but three minutes since I left you
asleep, and I stole away as time does when with you."

"Ah!" said Isora, smiling and blushing too, "but for my part, I think
there is an instinct to know, even if all the senses were shut up,
whether the one we love is with us or not. The moment you left me, I
felt it at once, even in sleep, and I woke. But you will not, no, you