Injury I have done her; persuade her to be mine."

"There needs no persuasion," said the blushing Perdita, "except your own

dear promises, and my ready heart, which whispers to me that they are

true."

That same evening we all three walked together in the forest, and, with the

garrulity which happiness inspires, they detailed to me the history of

their loves. It was pleasant to see the haughty Raymond and reserved

Perdita changed through happy love into prattling, playful children, both

losing their characteristic dignity in the fulness of mutual contentment. A

night or two ago Lord Raymond, with a brow of care, and a heart oppressed

with thought, bent all his energies to silence or persuade the legislators

of England that a sceptre was not too weighty for his hand, while visions

of dominion, war, and triumph floated before him; now, frolicsome as a

lively boy sporting under his mother's approving eye, the hopes of his

ambition were complete, when he pressed the small fair hand of Perdita to

his lips; while she, radiant with delight, looked on the still pool, not

truly admiring herself, but drinking in with rapture the reflection there

made of the form of herself and her lover, shewn for the first time in dear

conjunction.

I rambled away from them. If the rapture of assured sympathy was theirs, I

enjoyed that of restored hope. I looked on the regal towers of Windsor.

High is the wall and strong the barrier that separate me from my Star of

Beauty. But not impassible. She will not be his. A few more years dwell in

thy native garden, sweet flower, till I by toil and time acquire a right to

gather thee. Despair not, nor bid me despair! What must I do now? First I

must seek Adrian, and restore him to her. Patience, gentleness, and untired

affection, shall recall him, if it be true, as Raymond says, that he is

mad; energy and courage shall rescue him, if he be unjustly imprisoned.

After the lovers again joined me, we supped together in the alcove. Truly

it was a fairy's supper; for though the air was perfumed by the scent of

fruits and wine, we none of us either ate or drank--even the beauty of

the night was unobserved; their extasy could not be increased by outward

objects, and I was wrapt in reverie. At about midnight Raymond and I took

leave of my sister, to return to town. He was all gaiety; scraps of songs

fell from his lips; every thought of his mind--every object about us,

gleamed under the sunshine of his mirth. He accused me of melancholy, of

ill-humour and envy.

"Not so," said I, "though I confess that my thoughts are not occupied as

pleasantly as yours are. You promised to facilitate my visit to Adrian; I

conjure you to perform your promise. I cannot linger here; I long to soothe

--perhaps to cure the malady of my first and best friend. I shall

immediately depart for Dunkeld."

"Thou bird of night," replied Raymond, "what an eclipse do you throw across

my bright thoughts, forcing me to call to mind that melancholy ruin, which

stands in mental desolation, more irreparable than a fragment of a carved

column in a weed-grown field. You dream that you can restore him? Daedalus

never wound so inextricable an error round Minotaur, as madness has woven

about his imprisoned reason. Nor you, nor any other Theseus, can thread the

labyrinth, to which perhaps some unkind Ariadne has the clue."

"You allude to Evadne Zaimi: but she is not in England."

"And were she," said Raymond, "I would not advise her seeing him. Better to

decay in absolute delirium, than to be the victim of the methodical

unreason of ill-bestowed love. The long duration of his malady has probably

erased from his mind all vestige of her; and it were well that it should

never again be imprinted. You will find him at Dunkeld; gentle and

tractable he wanders up the hills, and through the wood, or sits listening

beside the waterfall. You may see him--his hair stuck with wild flowers

--his eyes full of untraceable meaning--his voice broken--his person

wasted to a shadow. He plucks flowers and weeds, and weaves chaplets of

them, or sails yellow leaves and bits of bark on the stream, rejoicing in

their safety, or weeping at their wreck. The very memory half unmans me. By

Heaven! the first tears I have shed since boyhood rushed scalding into my

eyes when I saw him."

It needed not this last account to spur me on to visit him. I only doubted

whether or not I should endeavour to see Idris again, before I departed.

This doubt was decided on the following day. Early in the morning Raymond

came to me; intelligence had arrived that Adrian was dangerously ill, and

it appeared impossible that his failing strength should surmount the

disorder. "To-morrow," said Raymond, "his mother and sister set out for

Scotland to see him once again."

"And I go to-day," I cried; "this very hour I will engage a sailing

balloon; I shall be there in forty-eight hours at furthest, perhaps in

less, if the wind is fair. Farewell, Raymond; be happy in having chosen the

better part in life. This turn of fortune revives me. I feared madness, not

sickness--I have a presentiment that Adrian will not die; perhaps this

illness is a crisis, and he may recover."

Everything favoured my journey. The balloon rose about half a mile from the

earth, and with a favourable wind it hurried through the air, its feathered

vans cleaving the unopposing atmosphere. Notwithstanding the melancholy

object of my journey, my spirits were exhilarated by reviving hope, by the

swift motion of the airy pinnace, and the balmy visitation of the sunny

air. The pilot hardly moved the plumed steerage, and the slender mechanism

of the wings, wide unfurled, gave forth a murmuring noise, soothing to the

sense. Plain and hill, stream and corn-field, were discernible below, while

we unimpeded sped on swift and secure, as a wild swan in his spring-tide

flight. The machine obeyed the slightest motion of the helm; and, the wind

blowing steadily, there was no let or obstacle to our course. Such was the

power of man over the elements; a power long sought, and lately won; yet

foretold in by-gone time by the prince of poets, whose verses I quoted much

to the astonishment of my pilot, when I told him how many hundred years ago

they had been written:--

Oh! human wit, thou can'st invent much ill,

Thou searchest strange arts: who would think by skill,

An heavy man like a light bird should stray,

And through the empty heavens find a way?