listened, but so profound was her sleep, that not even her breathings
could be overheard. I dropped the curtain and retired.

How blissful and mild were the illuminations of my bosom at this
discovery! A joy that surpassed all utterance succeeded the fierceness
of desperation. I stood, for some moments, wrapped in delightful
contemplation. Alas! it was a luminous but transient interval. The
madness to whose black suggestions it bore so strong a contrast began
now to make sensible approaches on my understanding.

"True," said I, "she lives. Her slumber is serene and happy. She is
blind to her approaching destiny. Some hours will at least be rescued
from anguish and death. When she wakes, the phantom that soothed her
will vanish. The tidings cannot be withheld from her. The murderer of
thy brother cannot hope to enjoy thy smiles. Those ravishing accents,
with which thou hast used to greet me, will be changed. Scowling and
reproaches, the invectives of thy anger and the maledictions of thy
justice, will rest upon my head,

"What is the blessing which I made the theme of my boastful arrogance?
This interval of being and repose is momentary. She will awake, but only
to perish at the spectacle of my ingratitude. She will awake only to the
consciousness of instantly-impending death. When she again sleeps she
will wake no more. I, her son,--I, whom the law of my birth doomed to
poverty and hardship, but whom her unsolicited beneficence snatched from
those evils, and endowed with the highest good known to intelligent
beings, the consolations of science and the blandishments of affluence,
--to whom the darling of her life, the offspring in whom are faithfully
preserved the lineaments of its angelic mother, she has not denied! What
is the recompense that I have made? How have I discharged the