—“Whatever may be the reason,” answered the Countess coldly, “I found it impossible to sleep. The glimmering of your lamp attracted me hither, and I was much surprised ... much rejoiced, I meant to say, ... at finding that _you_, Adelaide, had arrived here before me!”— Good heavens! how is it possible for any being possest of common feeling, to intrude into a circle without any other object, than disturbing the pleasure of those who are already assembled! Mellusina’s situation must have been as unpleasant to herself, as her presence was to us. She resisted with difficulty her inclination to slumber; and on the other hand, we suffered under the most torturing impatience to see her either departing, or asleep. It was more evident with every moment, that matters of the utmost importance floated upon the lips of Adelaide, and we waited with inexpressible anxiety for the moment, when she would be at liberty to disclose them. Thus did we mutually torment each other during more than half the night; when suddenly we were startled by a circumstance, at once the most unaccountable and the most impossible for me to forget.—It was almost morning. We were all silent, for we had long exhausted the few uninteresting topics, on which we could converse with Mellusina. Adelaide had already made two or three movements, as if she would have taken leave of us, and yet could not resolve to abandon all hopes of finding an opportunity of speaking to us unobserved. The lights burned faintly. Mellusina’s eyes at length closed; and to our great delight we saw her head recline against her shoulder with a look, which convinced us, that sleep had at last taken complete possession of her. Adelaide drew nearer to us, and pressing her finger on her lip with an air of caution, pointed with her other hand to the sleeping Mellusina. At that moment * * * * * END OF THE FIRST VOLUME. ------------------------------------ _Printed by D. N. SHURY, Berwick-Street, Soho._ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ● Transcriber’s Notes: ○ Errata listed in volume IV have been applied to this volume. ○ Missing or obscured punctuation was silently corrected. ○ Typographical errors were silently corrected. ○ Inconsistent spelling and hyphenation were made consistent only when a predominant form was found in this book. ○ Text that was in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).