and in the other an embroidery-frame, whose half-finished flowers spoke of recent employment. In each of the windows was a beaupot, and the roses were fresh, as if still on their native bough: and in one of the window-seats was a volume of Sir Philip Sydney's "Arcadia:" a few myrtle leaves were scattered on the yet unclosed page, a graceful mark to find the place where the youthful reader had brooded over visions of truth and love, already vanished, like the freshness of those leaves, strewed, as if they were flung on the shroud of departed hope.
The casements were open, and looked on one of the fairest aspects of the garden; and the murmur of branches brought a sense of repose, and a faint perfume that grew every moment sweeter. The sun had set, and a soft purple haze clothed the distance; but a few rosy tints yet floated on the horizon, far from the colourless moon, whose pale crescent, pure and lucid as pearl, had just arisen: one single star was on the sky, tremulous and clear, belonging to other worlds—
