ion of the lapse of time, and counted the passing
days with unvarying precision, yet she retained no such faithful
calendar in her memory, and had not observed that his absence always
occurred on the last day of the month.

The hour of sunset was now rapidly approaching, and as Nisida was
wrapped in thought, but with her eyes fixed wistfully upon the mighty
bosom of the deep, a slight sound as of the rustling of garments fell
upon her ears. She started up and glanced suddenly around. But how
ineffable was her astonishment--how great was her sudden joy, when she
beheld the figure of a man approaching her; for it instantly struck her
that the same ship which had conveyed him thither might bear her away
from a scene which had latterly become insupportably monotonous.

The individual whose presence thus excited her astonishment and her
delight, was tall, thin, and attired rather in the German than in the
Italian fashion: but, as he drew nearer, Nisida experienced indefinable
emotions of alarm, and vague fears rushed to her soul--for the
expression of that being's countenance was such as to inspire no
pleasurable emotions. It was not that he was ugly;--no--his features
were well formed, and his eyes were of dazzling brilliancy. But their
glances were penetrating and reptile-like,--glances beneath which those
of ordinary mortals would have quailed; and his countenance was stamped
with a mingled sardonism and melancholy which rendered it painful to
contemplate.

Nisida attributed her feeling of uneasiness and embarrassment to the
shame which she experienced at finding herself half-naked in the
presence of a stranger, for so oppressive bad become the heat of the
summer, that her clothing was most scanty, and she had long ceased to
decorate her person with garlands and wreaths of fantastically woven
flowers.

"Fear not, lady," said the demon, for he indeed it was; "I am come to
counsel and solace, not to alarm thee."

"How knowest thou that I require counsel? and who art thou that talkest
to me of solace?" asked Nisida, her sentiment of shame yielding to one
of boundless surprise at hearing herself thus addressed by a being who
appeared to read the very inmost secrets of her soul.

"I am one who can penetrate into all the mysteries of the human heart,"
returned the fiend, in his sonorous, deep-toned voice; "and I can gather
thy history from the expression of thy countenance, the attitude in
which I first beheld thee, whil