afford our hearts? Shall we not more fully believe in the immateriality and eternity of our love, if it remains, like a pure thought, in those regions which are inaccessible to change and death, than if it were degraded and profaned by unworthy delights? If ever," she added, after a short silence, and blushing deeply, "if ever, in a moment of frenzy and incredulity, you exacted from me such a proof of abnegation, the sacrifice would not only be one of dignity, but of existence; in robbing my love of its innocency, you would rob me of life; when you thought to embrace happiness, you would clasp only death in your arms; I am but a shade, and in one sigh I may exhale my soul!..." We remained silent for some time. At last, with a deep-drawn sigh, I said, "I understand you, and in my heart I had sworn the eternal innocency of my love, before you had done speaking, or required it of me." XXII. My resigned tone seemed to delight her, and to redouble the confiding charm of her manner. Night had spread over all, the stars glassed themselves in the lake, and the silence of Nature lulled the earth to rest. The winds, the trees and waves were hushed, to let us listen to all the fugitive impressions of feeling and of thought that whisper in the hearts of the happy. The boatmen sang snatches of their drawling and monotonous chants, which seem like the noted modulations of the waves on the shore. I was reminded of her voice, which seemed ever to sound in my ear, and I exclaimed, "Oh, that you would mark this enchanting night for me, by some sweet tones addressed to these winds and waves, so that they may be forever full of you!" I made a sign to the boatmen to be silent, and to stifle the sound of their oars, from which the drops came trickling back into the lake like a musical accompaniment of silvery notes. She sang a Scotch ballad, half naval and half pastoral, in which a young girl, whose sailor lover has left her to seek wealth beyond the seas, relates how her parents, wearied of waiting his return, had induced her to marry an old man, with whom she might have been happy, but for the remembrance of her early love. The ballad begins thus: "When the sheep are in the fauld and the ky at hame, And a' the weary warld to rest are gane, The waes of my heart fa' in showers frae my e'e, While my gude-man lies sound by me."