"Will not my Julia recollect this poor pledge of her former confidence?" drawing from a ribband a locket of hair I had once sent to the Sylph. "Is this, to me inestimable, gift no longer acknowledged by you? this dear part of yourself, whose enchantment gave to my wounded soul all the nourishment she drew, which supported me when exiled from all that the world had worth living for? Have you forgot the vows of lasting fidelity with which the value of the present was enhanced? Oh! sure you have not. And yet you are silent. May I not have one word, one look?" "Alas!" cried I, hiding my face from his glances; "what can I say? What can I do? Oh! too well I remember all. The consciousness, that every secret of my heart has been laid bare to your inspection, covers me with the deepest confusion." "Bear witness for me," cried he, "that I never made an ill use of that knowledge. Have I ever presumed upon it? Could you ever discover, by the arrogance of Ton-hausen's conduct, that he had been the happy _confidant_ of your retired sentiments? Believe me, Lady Stanley, that man will ever admire you most, who knows most your worth; and oh!, who knows it more, who adores it more than I?" "Still," said I, "I cannot compose my scattered senses. All appears a dream; but, trust me, I doat on the illusion. I would not be undeceived, if I am in an error. I would fain persuade myself, that but one man on earth is acquainted with the softness, I will not call it weakness, of my soul; and he the only man who could inspire that softness." "Oh! be persuaded, most angelic of women," said he, pressing my hand to his lips, "be persuaded of the truth of my assertion, that the Sylph and I are one. You know how you were circumstanced." "Yes! I was married before I had the happiness of being seen by you." "No, you was not." "Not married, before I was seen by you?" "Most surely not. Years, years before that event, I knew, and, knowing, loved you--loved you with all the fondness of man, while my age was that of a boy. Has Julia quite forgot her juvenile companions? Is the time worn from her memory, when Harry Woodley used to weave the fancied garland for her?" "Protect me, Heaven!" cried I, "sure I am in the land of shadows!" "No," cried he, clasping me in his arms, and smiling at my apostrophe, "you shall find substance and substantial joys too here." "Thou Proteus!" said I, withdrawing myself from his embrace, "what do you mean by thus shifting characters, and each so potent?" "To gain my charming Nymph," he answered. "But why should we thus waste our time? Let me lead you to your father." "My father! Is my father here?" "Yes, he brought me hither; perhaps, as Woodley, an unwelcome visitant. But will you have the cruelty to reject him?" added he, looking slyly.