feet, and she began. She had a clear voice,
and used it simply; only when her feelings became excited it would sink
to a moving melodious contralto. After she had read the first few
pages, and waxing warmer, began to recite the passage: "To which of
these immortals, the highest prize?" &c., &c.--the words almost turned
to song. She read the poem slowly to the end, and gently closing the
book--"How do you like it?" she whispered.

He did not answer. The eyes that had been dreamily fixed on the blue
ring of flickering light upon the ceiling, had been dropping gradually,
till at last they closed. His head was resting on her knee; he breathed
softly, and smiled in his sleep. "Is he thinking of his last valse?"
she said to herself, looking thoughtfully down on his cloudless brow,
and at the full red lips, above which a line of soft yellow down had
begun to shew itself. The lines of that blooming face were certainly
far from regular; but even in sleep, there was an intellectual charm
about it--a spiritualized sense of humour--that ennobled its
expression. Those lips had certainly never parted to laugh at or to
utter a scurrile jest.

Thus she sat gazing on the placid face of the sleeper; till wearied by
the thoughts that came sweeping through her brain in the stillness of
the night, she leaned back in her chair, her eyelids drooped, and she
too, fell into a slight dreamy kind of sleep.

An hour elapsed. The wind blew the casement open, with a gust of damp
night-air that extinguished the little lamp that had almost consumed
its oil.

A heavy dragging step was heard upon the stairs. She heard it even
through her dream, though the darkness prevented her waking quite. The
door opened, and a lantern threw its full ray of vivid light full upon
her face. She started up in alarm: "Is that you, Meister?" she said,
hastily passing her hand across her eyes.

A strange figure was standing on the threshold--a tall man between
fifty and sixty, in a long loose coat trimmed with fur, buttoned over a
faded red velvet waistcoat. He wore a cap or barret, placed so far
forward upon his grizzling curls, as also to cover the half of his
flushed forehead. One foot was shod with a coarse stout boot, and the
other, wrapt out of all shape, with a large felt slipper.

For all his uneven gait, and his uncouth appearance, there was that
about him which was well calculated to quell any inclination to laugh;
and the look from those sinister dark eye