“Undoubtedly,” she returned; and the Prince who had risen unusually early, entered the room at that moment, and joined us at the drawing-desk. ***** The absence of the good priest left me to a solitary dinner. Glorvina (as is usual with her) spent the first part of the evening in her father’s room; and thus denied her society, I endeavoured to supply its want--its soul-felt want, by a visit to her boudoir. There is a certain tone of feeling when fancy is in its acme, when sentiment holds the senses in subordination, and the visionary joys which float in the imagination shed a livelier bliss on the soul, than the best pleasures cold reality ever conferred. Then, even the presence of a beloved object is not more precious to the heart than the spot consecrated to her memory; where we fancy the very air is impregnated with her respiration; every object is hallowed by her recent touch, and that all around breathes of her. In such a mood of mind, I ascended to Glor-vina’s boudoir; and I really believe, that had she accompanied, I should have felt less than when alone and unseen I stole to the asylum of her pensive thoughts. It lay as she had described; and almost as I passed its threshold, I was sensibly struck by the incongruity of its appearance--it seemed to me as though it had been partly furnished in the beginning of one century, and finished in the conclusion of another. The walls were rudely wainscotted with oak, black with age; yet the floor was covered with a Turkey carpet, rich, new, and beautiful--better adapted to cover a Parisian dressing-room than the closet of a ruined tower. The casements were high and narrow, but partly veiled with a rich drapery of scarlet silk: a few old chairs, heavy and cumbrous, were interspersed with stools of an antique form; one of which lay folded upon the ground, so as to be portable in a travelling trunk. On a ponderous Gothic table (which seemed a fixture coeval with the building) was placed a silver _escritoire_, of curious and elegant workmanship, and two small, but beautiful antique vases (filled with flowers) of Etrurian elegance. Two little book-shelves, elegantly designed, but most clumsily executed, (probably by some hedge-carpenter) were filled with the best French, English, and Italian poets; and, to my utter astonishment, not only some new publications scarce six months old, but two London newspapers of no distant date, lay scattered on the table, with some MS. music, and some unfinished drawings. Having gratified my curiosity, by examining the singular incongruities of this paradoxical boudoir, I leaned for some time against one of the windows, endeavouring to make out some defaced lines cut on its panes with a diamond, when Glorvina herself entered the room.