The moon still shone with a clear and fervent light, displaying every object in a distinct manner, and shewing the picturesque dress of the impassioned stranger to the best advantage. His figure was slight but perfectly formed, while his fair skin and glowing cheeks bespoke his Saxon origin. His eyes were of the clearest blue, and his long auburn locks, parted in the middle of his forehead, flowed over his shoulders, in length and profusion equalling a woman’s. A slight moustache shaded his upper lip, which, slightly curved, displayed a set of teeth faultless in size and colour. His dress, fashioned in that superb style which the followers of Charles loved to indulge in, consisted of a doublet of three-piled murrey-colour velvet, pinked and slashed with white satin, and ornamented with elaborate embroidery, his falling band, or collar, of the richest point lace, and his nether garments to match with the doublet, were finished at the knees with white satin roses and diamond studs. A small but admirably tempered Toledo, the hilt of solid gold, and sparkling with diamonds, was strapped to his side by an embroidered belt; while a Flemish beaver hat, looped with a diamond button, and surrounded by a snowy plume, shaded his somewhat boyish features. A dark short cloak, lined with white tafiety, which he had flung aside when springing to meet Zulmiera, floated from behind his right shoulder, and served to give him still more an air of graceful elegance. “Dearest Zulmiera,” said the young stranger, when seated upon the trunk of a large tree, which, uprooted by a former hurricane, and slightly covered by a little alluvial earth, had shot forth a few sickly branches—“dearest Zulmiera, how long I have waited for you —how much I have to tell you! I have watched each star as it peeped forth from the heavens—heard the shrill pipe of the curlew as it flew to its nest—but listened in vain for your light footstep; say, dearest, what kept you from the trysting-tree?” “I was in attendance upon my mistress until this late hour,” replied Zulmiera, speaking in an ironical tone, and laying a strong emphasis upon the word _mistress_, while a slight look of scorn passed over her animated features; “or else doubt not I would have met you long before; for where, Raphe, would the bird with weary wing seek for rest but by the side of its own fond mate? or why should yon white flower,” pointing to a night-jasmine which was growing in all its wild luxuriance near the spot, and loading the air with sweet and powerful perfume—“why should yon white flower haste to open its pretty leaves, as soon as the day melts away, were it not to seek the fond love of those beautiful stars which are twinkling above us? Raphe, you are my mate, and your eyes are my stars, in which I read my destiny.”