Yet, though experiencing a pleasurable emotion, strong as it was novel, there was still one little wakeful wish throbbing vaguely at my heart. Was it possible that my chilled, my sated misanthropic feelings, still sent forth one sigh of wishful solicitude for woman’s dangerous presence? No, the sentiment the daughter of the Prince inspired, only made a _part_ in that general feeling of curiosity, which every thing in this new region of wonders continued to nourish into existence. What had I to expect from the unpolished manners, the confined ideas of this Wild Irish Girl? Deprived of all those touching allurements which society only gives; reared in wilds and solitudes, with no other associates than her nurse, her confessor, and her father; endowed indeed by nature with some personal gifts, set off by the advantage of a singular and characteristic dress, for which she is indebted to whim and natural prejudice, rather than native taste:--I, who had fled in disgust even from those to whose natural attraction the bewitching blandishments of education, the brilliant polish of fashion, and the dazzling splendour of _real_ rank, contributed their potent spells. And yet, the roses of Florida, though the fair est in the universe, and springing from the richest soil, emit no fragrance; while the mountain violet, rearing its timid form from a steril bed, flings on the morning breeze the most delicious perfume. While given up to such reflections as these--while the sound of the Irish harp arose from the hall below, and the nurse muttered her prayers in Irish over her beads by my side, I fell into a gentle slumber, in which I dreamed that the Princess of Inismore approached my bed, drew aside the curtains, and raising her veil, discovered a face I had hitherto rather guessed at than seen. Imagine my horror--it was the face, the head of a _Gorgon!_ Awakened by the sudden and terrific emotion it excited, though still almost motionless, as if from the effects of a nightmare (which in fact, from the position I lay in, had oppressed me in the form of the Princess) I cast my eyes through a fracture in the old damask drapery of my bed, and beheld--not the horrid spectre of my recent dream, but the form of a cherub hovering near my pillow--it was the Lady Glorvina herself! Oh! how I trembled lest the fair image should only be the vision of my slumber: I scarcely dared to breathe, lest it should dissolve. She was seated on the nurse’s little stool, her elbow resting on her knee, her cheek reclined upon her hand: for once the wish of Romeo appeared no hyperbela.