she should not see him on her entrance, but he now took it off. Her surprise was excessive at beholding him. She took him to be a statue, for he stood motionless in the attitude he had assumed. She gazed upon him with a mixed feeling of joy and alarm. His unexpected appearance astonished her, but in her heart pleasure soon conquered fear, and she began to admire a figure so lifelike; when the Prince, to the accompaniment of his lyre, sung the following verses:—
What perils lurk in this enchanted spot!
Indifference the heart availeth not!
Vain are the vows I made to love no more;
Hopeless, I give the unequal struggle o'er.'
Why call this realm the Isle of Peaceful Pleasure?
Who treads its shore, a slave thenceforth must sigh.
Vanquished, I cease with Love my strength to measure;
Here, in his chains, I would but live and die!
Melodious as was the voice of Leander, the Princess could not master the terror with which the prodigy inspired her. She turned pale and fainted. Leander alarmed, leaped from the pedestal, and put on his little red hat, that no one might perceive him. He raised the Princess in his arms, and used every means his affection and anxiety could suggest to recover her. She opened her beautiful eyes, and looked around her as if in search of him. She saw no one; but she felt somebody was near her who pressed her hands, kissed them, and bathed them with tears. For some time she did not dare speak. Her mind was agitated between hope and fear. She trembled at the sprite; but she loved the handsome unknown, whose features she believed it had assumed in the statue. At length she exclaimed, "Sprite! charming Sprite! why are you not the person I would have you be?" At these words Leander was on the point of declaring himself, but still hesitated to do so. "If I terrify the object I adore," thought he, "if she fear me, she will not love me." These considerations kept him silent, and induced him to retreat into a corner of the grotto.
The Princess, believing herself to be alone, called Abricotine and related to her the prodigy of the animated statue. That its voice was celestial, and that when she fainted the sprite had rendered her the kindest assistance. "What a pity," she exclaimed, "that this sprite is deformed and hideous, for
