o spare. On the table still remained the punch bowl and
glasses, stewed about in their usual disorder after a drunken revel.

But when I drew nearer, to view the sleeping estray, heavens! what
a sight! No! term of years, no turn of fortune could ever eraze the
lightninglike impression his form made on me. Yes! dearest object of
my earliest passion, I command for ever the remembrance of thy first
appearance to my ravished eyes, it calls thee up, present; and I see
thee now.

Figure to yourself, Madam, fair stripling between eighteen and nineteen,
with his head reclined on one of the sides of the chair, his hair
disordered curls, irregularly shading a face, on which all the roseate
bloom of youth and all the manly graces conspired to fix my eye
sand heart; even the languour and paleness of his face, in which the
momentary triumph of the lily over the rose was owing to the excesses
of the night, gave an inexpressible sweetness to the finest features
imaginable: his eyes, closed in sleep, displayed the meeting edges of
their lids beautifully bordered with long eye-lashes; over which no
pencil could have described two more regular arches than those that
graced his forehead, which was high, perfectly white and smooth; then a
pair of vermilion lips, pouting and swelling to the touch, as if a bee
had freshly stung them, seemed to challenge me to get the gloves off
this lovely sleeper, had not the modesty and respect, which in both
sexes are inseparable from a true passion, checked my impulses.

But on seeing his shirt collar unbottoned, and bosom whiter than a drift
of snow, the pleasure of considering it could not bribe me to lengthen
it, at the hazard of a health that began to be my life's concern. Love,
that made me timid, taught me to be tender too: with a trembling hand
I took hold of one of his, and waking him as gently as possible, he
started, and looking, at first a little wildly, said with a voice that
sent its harmonious sound to my heart: "Pray, child, what-a-clock is
it?" I told him, and added that he might catch cold if he slept longer
with his breast open in the cool of the morning air. On this he thanked
me with a sweetness perfectly agreeing with that of his features and
eyes; the last now broad open, and eagerly surveying me, carried the
surightly fires they sparkled with directly to my heart.

It seems, that having drank too freely before he came upon the rake with
some of his young companions, he had put h