But now could Sylvia give a brighter semblance of reality to those day-
dreams. Clasping the miniature to her heart, she could summon forth,
from that haunted cell of pure and blissful fantasies, the life-like
shadow, to roam with her in the moonlight garden. Even at noontide it
sat with her in the arbor, when the sunshine threw its broken flakes of
gold into the clustering shade. The effect upon her mind was hardly less
powerful than if she had actually listened to, and reciprocated, the vows
of Edgar Vaughan; for, though the illusion never quite deceived her, yet
the remembrance was as distinct as of a remembered interview. Those
heavenly eyes gazed forever into her soul, which drank at them as at a
fountain, and was disquieted if reality threw a momentary cloud between.
She heard the melody of a voice breathing sentiments with which her own
chimed in like music. O happy, yet hapless girl! Thus to create the
being whom she loves, to endow him with all the attributes that were most
fascinating to her heart, and then to flit with the airy creature into
the realm of fantasy and moonlight, where dwelt his dreamy kindred! For
her lover wiled Sylvia away from earth, which seemed strange, and dull,
and darksome, and lured her to a country where her spirit roamed in
peaceful rapture, deeming that it had found its home. Many, in their
youth, have visited that land of dreams, and wandered so long in its
enchanted groves, that, when banished thence, they feel like exiles
everywhere.

The dark-browed Edward Hamilton, like the villain of a tale, would often
glide through the romance wherein poor Sylvia walked. Sometimes, at the
most blissful moment of her ecstasy, when the features of the miniature
were pictured brightest in the air, they would suddenly change, and
darken, and be transformed into his visage. And always, when such change
occurred, the intrusive visage wore that peculiar smile with which
Hamilton had glanced at Sylvia.