In that house, at the time I now speak of, lodged the mysterious Liehbur.
It was late at noon, and she sat alone in her apartment, which was
darkened so as to exclude the broad and peering sun. There was no trick,
nor sign of the fallacious art she professed, visible in the large and
melancholy room. One or two books in the German language lay on the table
beside which she sat: but they were of the recent poetry, and not of the
departed dogmas, of the genius of that tongue. The enthusiast was alone;
and, with her hand supporting her chin, and her eyes fixed on vacancy, she
seemed feeding in silence the thoughts that flitted to and fro athwart a
brain which had for years lost its certain guide; a deserted mansion,
whence the lord had departed, and where spirits not of this common life
had taken up their haunted and desolate abode. And never was there a
countenance better suited to the character which this singular woman had
assumed. Rich, thick, auburn hair was parted loosely over a brow in which
the large and full temples would have betrayed to a phrenologist the great
preponderance which the dreaming and the imaginative bore over the sterner
faculties. Her eyes were deep, intense, but of the bright and wandering
glitter which is so powerful in its effect on the beholder, because it
betokens that thought which is not of this daily world and inspires that
fear, that sadness, that awe, which few have looked on the face of the
insane and not experienced. Her features were still noble, and of the
fair Greek symmetry of the painter's Sibyl; but the cheeks were worn and
hollow, and one bright spot alone broke their marble paleness; her lips
were, however, full, and yet red, and by their uncertain and varying play,
gave frequent glimpses of teeth lustrously white; which, while completing
the beauty of her face, aided--with somewhat of a fearful effect--the
burning light of her strange eyes, and the vague, mystic expression of her
abrupt and unjoyous smile. You might see when her features were, as now,
in a momentary repose, that her health was broken, and that she was not