knight errants yet live, rescuing maids, or he is a
wandering god, and here is Arcadia, why should
that make me grieve? It is true that he is hand-
some -- and yet what of that? -- most men are hand-
some in the eyes of maids. But he appears the pa-
ragon of men. Is he indeed not all a man should
be? Where were the blemish, the exception; who
shall challenge nature, saying, in his form, that here
she has given too little, there too much? -- Ah, me!
I am not happy, yet I should be so."

"Can I have heard aright, or do I dream?" gasped
out the stranger.

"A knight, a god;" she continued, yet musing;
"oh, he came hither like a knight of old, or as
an angry angel sent to scatter fiends; -- or, rather,
like the lightning he arrived, out of the storm cloud
of I know not where. Where is he now? whence
was he? who is he? what? Alas, I know nothing
of where, nor who, nor what, nor whence he is;
all that I know is, I am strangely sad; and that such
perfection was not made for me."

"Is this not Stillyside?" enquired the listener, "or
do I wander in some spirit-land; lost, lost; -- oh,
so luxuriously lost! She, too, seems lost -- lost in
a reverie, and all forlorn. I'll speak to her; -- and
yet I fear to speak, I fear to breathe, lest the undu-
lating air should burst this, and prove it to be but a
bubble. Yet she breathes, she spoke, and oh, such
words! Words, be at my command; I will address
her, for this is not fancy: could fancy shew a moving
soul of sorrow? See how the passion plays upon
that face, as she thus stands with sad-eyed earnest-
ness, maintaining converse with the hollow sky.

[[36]]

p035 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p036w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p037

v?