“Every thing lay hushed under a brief and treacherous calm. Isidora, who trembled at the approaching danger, felt her terrors on a sudden suspended. It was not so very near as she apprehended--and she bore with tolerable patience the daily mention of her approaching nuptials, while she was momently harassed by her confidential servants with hints of the impossibility of the event of which they were in expectation, being much longer delayed. Isidora heard, felt, endured all with courage--the grave congratulation of her father and mother--the self-complacent attentions of Montilla, sure of the bride and of her dower--the sullen compliance of the brother, who, unable to refuse his consent, was for ever hinting that _his_ sister might have formed a higher connection. All these passed over her mind like a dream--the reality of her existence seemed internal, and she said to herself,--“Were I at the altar, were my hand locked in that of Montilla, Melmoth would rend me from him.” A wild but deeply-fixed conviction--a wandering image of preternatural power, overshadowed her mind while she thought of Melmoth;--and this image, which had caused her so much terror and inquietude in her early hours of love, now formed her only resource against the hour of inconceivable suffering; as those unfortunate females in the Eastern Tales, whose beauty has attracted the fearful passion of some evil genie, are supposed to depend, at their nuptial hour, on the presence of the seducing spirit, to tear from the arms of the agonised parent, and the distracted bridegroom, the victim whom he has reserved for himself, and whose wild devotion to him gives a dignity to the union so unhallowed and unnatural(15). * * * * * * (15) Vide the beautiful tale of Auheta the Princess of Egypt, and Maugraby the Sorcerer, in the Arabian Tales. “Aliaga’s heart expanded amid the approaching completion of the felicitous plans he had formed, and with his heart, his purse, which was its depositary, opened also, and he resolved to give a splendid fete in honour of his daughter’s nuptials. Isidora remembered Melmoth’s prediction of a fatal festival; and his words, “I will be there,” gave her for a time a kind of trembling confidence. But as the preparations were carried on under her very eye,--as she was hourly consulted about the disposal of the ornaments, and the decorations of the apartments,--her resolution failed, and while she uttered a few incoherent words, her eye was glazed with horror.