"Ye mortal stars! ye eyes that, e'en in sleep,
Can thus my senses chain'd in wonder keep,
Say, if when closed, your beauties thus I feel,
Oh, what when open, would ye not reveal?"

Her beauty owed not its peculiar charm to any regularity of feature; but
to an ineffable sweetness of expression, and to youth's freshest bloom.
Hafiz would have compared that smooth cheek to the tulip's flower. Her
eye-lashes, of the deepest jet, and silken gloss, were of uncommon
length. Her lips were apart, and disclosed small but exquisitely formed
teeth. Their hue was not that of ivory, but the more delicate though
more transient one of the pearl. One arm supported her head--its hand
tangled in the raven tresses--of the other, the snowy rounded elbow was
alone visible.

She met the eye, like a vision conjured up by fervid youth; when, ere
our waking thoughts dare to run riot in beauty's contemplation--sleep,
the tempter, gives to our disordered imaginations, forms and scenes,
which in after life we pant for, but meet them--never!

George put his finger to his lips, as Delme regarded her--kissed her
silken cheek, and whispered,

"Acme, carissima mia!"

The slumberer started--the envious eye-lid shrouded no more its lustrous
jewel--the wondering eyes dilated, as they met her lover's--and she
murmured something with that sweet Venetian lisp, in which the Greek
women breathe their Italian. But, as she saw the stranger, her face and
neck became suffused with crimson, and her small hand wrapped the snowy