tty; what a disappointment if she were not; what a total
rout to all my imaginings if she were to have red hair,--how terrible
if she should squint! These thoughts at last became too tantalizing for
endurance, and so I tried to fall asleep and forget them; but in vain,
they had got too firm a hold of me, and I could not shake them off.

It was now about midnight, the fire waxed low, and "the Friar" was sound
asleep. What connection was there between these considerations and her
of whom I was thinking? Who knows? I arose and sat up, listening with
eager ear to the low long breathings of the Friar, who, with his round
bullet-head pillowed on a pine-log, slept soundly; the gentle hum of the
leaves, scarcely moved by the night wind, and the distant sound of the
falling water, were lullabies to his slumber. It was a gorgeous night of
stars; the sky was studded with bright orbs in all the brilliant lustre
of a southern latitude. The fireflies, too, danced and glittered on
every side, leaving traces of the phosphoric light on the leaves as they
passed. The air was warm and balmy with "the rich odor of the cedar and
the acacia,"--just such a night as one would like to pass in "converse
sweet" with some dear friend, mingling past memories with shadowy
dreams, and straying along from bygones to futurity.

I crept over stealthily to where the Friar lay: a lively fear prevailed
with me that he might be feigning sleep, and so I watched him long and
narrowly. No, it was an honest slumber; the deep guttural of his mellow
throat was beyond counterfeiting. I threw a log upon the fire carelessly
and with noise, to see if it would awake him; but he only muttered a
word or two that sounded like Latin, and slept on. I now strained
my eyes towards the hammock, of which, under the shadow of a great
sycamore-tree, I could barely detect the outline through the leaves.

Should I be able to discern her features, were I to creep over? What a
difficult question, and how impossible to decide by mere reasoning upon
it! What if I were to try? It was a pure piece of curiosity,--curiosity
of the most harmless kind. I had been, doubtless, just as eager to scan
the Friar's lineaments, if he had taken the same pains to conceal them
from me. It was absurd, besides, to travel with a person and not see
their face. Intercourse was a poor thing without that reciprocity which
looks convey. I 'll have a peep, at all events, said I, summing up to
myself all my ar