herself with fright.

"Have you sustained any harm?" I asked her.

She raised her hand to her head, and said: "It was a robber, sir, who
had torn off my head-dress, consisting of some pins of value;--nothing
further. I entreat you to afford me your protection, as I am a
stranger in this place. It was from curiosity I left my mother and
sister who are waiting without. This man was to guide me back from
this extensive labyrinth, and he led me to this remote spot."

I offered her my arm; we stepped out to the daylight. Oh! my
Clementine! ....

She was sixteen years of age, delicately and beautifully formed. She
floats at my side, like an aerial being; I did not perceive her steps.
The sweetness, freshness, and intellectual expression of her
countenance were angelic, and her look, full of innocence and love,
penetrated my inmost soul.

I sank into a pleasant confusion. I had never before known such a
sensation of confidence and admiration, of inexpressible affection and
profound respect. I had grown up to the age of twenty-one, I knew love
only from the pictures of the ancient poets, and I called it a
passionate friendship, unworthy a man. Alas! it was, indeed, something
very different. Love is the poetry of human nature. The sensation we
experience in contemplating beauty, ennobles rude sensuality, and
elevates it to a point of contact with the spiritual, so that the
virtuous, independent spirit unites itself, under the magic influence
of grace, with the earthly. Thus it is true that love deifies the
mortal clay, and draws down upon earth what is heavenly.

Thus I went on, and I had lost all my recollection, till we arrived at
the Carmelite-gate, where, suddenly, I came to myself again.

"You are a stranger?" I asked, in a faltering voice.

"Yes," she replied; "but it is in vain that we seek my mother and
sister. Do you know the house of M. Albertas? It is there we live."

"I will bring you to it."

We turned round towards the street where M. Albertas resided. What a
change! The narrow dark streets seemed no longer to me like damp
dungeon walls, but like splendid clouds through which men were passing
like shadows.

We did not speak. We came to the house. The door was joyfully opened.
The whole family pressed forward to welcome the beloved lost child, for
whom servants had been sent out, who were still in search of her. It
was then that I heard, amidst a thousand caresses towards her, the
n