Now, as the hour of interview drew so near, she grew more and more uneasy. "If I can only persuade him," said she, "that I have acted as an upright maiden!" Before exchanging her morning chamber for the mourning-carriage, she set all things to rights there for drawing, when she should return; she had, she said, had a very bad dream, but she hoped it would not come to pass. With her work-basket on her arm, in which the letters lay, she stepped into the carriage, which they had to open, because its sultry air oppressed her. But the sultriness was the breath and atmosphere of her own spirit, and everything beautiful which met her became to her to-day a benumbing poison-flower. Fearfully she kept grasping and pressing the hand of her mother, because every cry, every form that darted by, fluttered over her like a rustling storm-bird; a crier, with his rough tone, cut across her nerves; they trembled more gently again, only when a pastor and his servant passed by with the sick-cup for the evening drink of weary people. O, the fair way was long to her! She had so long to hold together with fainting powers the breaking heart, which was to speak so firmly and decidedly and distinctly with her beloved. The sky was blue, and yet neither of them remarked that it was beginning to be dark without clouds, since the moon already stood with her night upon the sun. As they passed over the woodland bridge into the living Lilar, where on all branches hung the old bridal-dresses of a decorated past, Liana said, with intense earnestness, to her mother: "For God's sake, not into the old castle of the dead!"[18] "But which way then? That is his rendezvous," said the mother. "Anywhere else,--into the Dream-temple. He sees us already; yonder he goes over the gates," said she. "God Almighty be with thee, and speak not long," said the weeping mother, as she went from her into the temple, in whose mirrors she could behold the parting of the innocent beings. Albano came slowly along down through the walks; he had cleared his eye of tears and his heart of storms. O, how had he hitherto, like a long-tossed mariner, peered into his dark clouds, in order between their misty peaks to discover the mountain-peaks of a green continent!--that he was to-day to lose so much, namely all, his most mournful conclusions had not gone so far as that; nay, he maintained so much tranquillity, that he sent back overhead the little Pollux, who came dancing after, not with threats, but with presents.