cross the
hall to meet me. When we had parted, I had clasped her to my bosom with
unrestrained warmth; we met again, and new feelings were awakened; when
each beheld the other, childhood passed, as full grown actors on this
changeful scene. The pause was but for a moment; the flood of association
and natural feeling which had been checked, again rushed in full tide upon
our hearts, and with tenderest emotion we were swiftly locked in each
other's embrace.

This burst of passionate feeling over, with calmed thoughts we sat
together, talking of the past and present. I alluded to the coldness of her
letters; but the few minutes we had spent together sufficiently explained
the origin of this. New feelings had arisen within her, which she was
unable to express in writing to one whom she had only known in childhood;
but we saw each other again, and our intimacy was renewed as if nothing had
intervened to check it. I detailed the incidents of my sojourn abroad, and
then questioned her as to the changes that had taken place at home, the
causes of Adrian's absence, and her secluded life.

The tears that suffused my sister's eyes when I mentioned our friend, and
her heightened colour seemed to vouch for the truth of the reports that had
reached me. But their import was too terrible for me to give instant credit
to my suspicion. Was there indeed anarchy in the sublime universe of
Adrian's thoughts, did madness scatter the well-appointed legions, and was
he no longer the lord of his own soul? Beloved friend, this ill world was
no clime for your gentle spirit; you delivered up its governance to false
humanity, which stript it of its leaves ere winter-time, and laid bare its
quivering life to the evil ministration of roughest winds. Have those
gentle eyes, those "channels of the soul" lost their meaning, or do they
only in their glare disclose the horrible tale of its aberrations? Does
that voice no longer "discourse excellent music?" Horrible, most horrible!
I veil my eyes in terror of the change, and gushing tears bear witness to
my sympathy for this unimaginable ruin.

In obedience to my request Perdita detailed the melancholy circumstances
that led to this event.

The frank and unsuspicious mind of Adrian, gifted as it was by every
natural grace, endowed with transcendant powers of intellect, unblemished
by the shadow of defect (unless his dreadless independence of thought was
to be construed into one), was devoted, even as a