“We re-entered the grotto, where the hermit stretched out a bed of cypress-moss for Atala. Profound language was depicted in the eyes and movements of the maiden. She looked at Father Aubry as though she wished to reveal a secret to him; but something appeared to deter her from so doing--either my presence, or a sort of shame, or perhaps the uselessness of the avowal. I heard her get up in the middle of the night. She went to look for the hermit; but, as he had given up his couch to Atala, he had gone to contemplate the beauty of the heavens, and to pray to God on the top of the mountain. He told me the next day that such was his custom, even during winter, as he loved to see the forests wave their stripped summits, the clouds fly through the air, and to hear the winds and the torrents roar in the solitude. My sister was therefore obliged to return to her couch, where she immediately fell asleep. Alas! full of hope, I thought Atala’s weakness was nothing more than a passing sign of weariness. “The following morning I was awakened by the songs of the cardinals and the mockingbirds, nestled in the acacias and laurels that surrounded the grotto. I went forth and gathered a magnolia rose, and placed it, wet with the tears of the morning, upon the head of my sleeping Atala. I hoped, according to the religion of my country, that the soul of some child dead at the breast might have descended upon this flower in a dew-drop, and that a happy dream might convey it to the bosom of my future spouse. I afterwards sought my host. I found him, his gown turned up into his two pockets, and a chaplet in his hand, waiting for me, seated upon the trunk of a pine-tree that had fallen from old age. He proposed that we should go together to the Mission while Atala was still reposing. I accepted his offer, and we immediately started on our way. “On descending the mountain, I perceived some oaks upon which the genii seemed to have drawn foreign characters. The hermit told me that he had traced them himself; that they were some verses of an ancient poet called Homer, and a few sentences of another poet, more ancient still, named Solomon. There was a sort of mysterious harmony between the wisdom of former times, the verses eaten into by moss, the old hermit who had engraved them, and the aged oaks which had served him for books. “His name, his age, and the date of his mission were also marked upon a reed of the savannah at the foot of those trees. I was surprised at the fragility of the latter monument. ‘It will last longer than I,’ replied the father, ‘and it will always be of more value than the little good I have done.’