As I stood concealed by the silken drapery, she did not perceive me. A basket of flowers hung on her arm, from which she replenished the vases, having first flung away their faded treasures. As she stood thus engaged and cheering her sweet employment with a murmured song, I stole softly behind her, and my breath disturbing the ringlets which had escaped from the bondage of her bodkin, and seemed to cling to her neck for protection, she turned quickly round, and with a start, a blush, and a smile, said, “Ah! _so soon_ here!” “You perceive,” said I, “your immunity was not lost on me! I have been here this half hour!” “Indeed!” she replied, and casting round a quick inquiring glance, hastily collected the scattered papers, and threw them into a drawer; adding, “I intended to have made some arrangements in this deserted little place, that you might see it in its best garb; but had scarcely begun the necessary reform this morning, when I was suddenly called to my father, and could not till this moment find leisure to return hither.” While she spoke I gazed earnestly at her. It struck me there was a something of mystery over this apartment, yet wherefore should mystery dwell where all breathes the ingenuous simplicity of the golden age? Glorvina moved towards the casement, threw open the sash, and laid her fresh gathered flowers on the seat. Their perfume scented the room; and a new fallen shower still glittered on the honeysuckle which she was endeavouring to entice through the window round which it crept. The sun was setting with rather a mild than a dazzling splendour, and the landscape was richly impurpled with its departing beams, which, as they darted through the scarlet drapery of the curtain, shed warmly over the countenance and figure of Glorvina “_Love’s proper hue_.” We both remained silent, until her eye accidentally meeting mine, a more “celestial rosy red” invested her cheek. She seated herself in the window, and I drew a chair and sat near her. All within was the softest gloom--all without the most solemn stillness. The gray vapours of twilight were already stealing amidst the illumined clouds that floated in the atmosphere--the sun’s golden beams no longer scattered round their rich suffusion; and the glow of retreating day was fading even from the horizon where its parting glories faintly lingered. “It is a sweet hour,” said Glorvina, softly sighing. “It is a _boudoirizing_ hour,” said I. “It is a golden one for a poetic heart,” she added. “Or an enamoured one,” I returned. “It is the hour in which the soul best knows itself; when every low-thoughted care is excluded, and the pensive pleasures take possession of the dis solving heart. “Ces douces lumières Ces sombre certes Sont les jours de la volupté.”