to be introduced to me, did not some interior voice warn me of approaching misery?
"I accompanied to her box the friend who sought me. We entered softly, while Sontag was in the midst of her most popular song, and Mrs. Herbert at first did not perceive us. I stood behind her, admiring the small head, placed so exquisitely on the shoulders; suddenly she turned—I cannot tell you the charm I found in her gentle and somewhat cold manner—the importance of the effect you produced was so much increased by the difficulty there was in discovering its amount. Singularly pale, the marble whiteness of her complexion was strongly contrasted by the black hair, the black dress, and the black drooping feathers of her hat. She well knew the romantic style of her beauty; it was the imagination she sought to interest: hence the young, the enthusiastic, were the victims she selected.
"She said nothing to me of my writings; and I enjoyed the thought that my vanity, at least, had not been enlisted in her favour: I forgot the sweet low voice that so often asked my opinion, the knowledge so unconsciously displayed of my pursuits, and the large black eyes whose every look was a flattery. I have often wondered why she willed to number me among her conquests: but, though I could not give rank or wealth, I could give a name; and, as we always tire of what we do possess, she might desire to exchange the present for the future; the poetry she could not feel, she
