rtive breeze--all tended to
lead her senses into a delusive, but pleasing reverie. She listened, and
thought she heard _his_ voice. She looked tremblingly as if in the
expectation of the appearance of her lover. The thicket of myrtle
rustles and shakes, and flings on the air its load of fragrance, when
from its green bosom softly steals forward a tall and majestic figure.

Could it be possible? Or had her bewildered imagination conjured up the
airy phantom to deceive her? It was _he_--Gomez Arias--and as she gazed
intensely, the shadow moved slowly along, lengthening in the moonlight
as it proceeded. No delusion was here; it was indeed her lover she
beheld, moving with the same graceful manner as when she saw him last in
the garden of her father. The phantom approached, not in the unearthly
sickly semblance of a tenant of the tomb, but radiant with the joy of a
successful lover; his eye beaming with the glow of life. It moved! it
passed! 'tis gone--and Theodora, in the complication of her feelings,
remained with her eyes fixed, looking intently on the space where she
had distinguished the form of her lover.

During some time she remained plunged in a delightful trance, till the
solemn knell of a neighbouring convent, summoning the cloistered monks
to their orisons, suddenly dissolved the potent charm, and banished the
bright illusion for the reality of sorrow. The dear image of her lover
had departed, and a veil of gloom seemed to fall over the surrounding
scene. An unearthly dullness pervaded the air; the night wind sighed
mournfully through the rustling boughs of the trees; the moon threw a
colourless light from behind a shroud of clouds, and the semblance of
death seemed to reign around.

Theodora could no longer sustain the dreary scene, and she hurried back
to her couch, to linger through the night in the unavailing attempt to
court repose. Alas! refreshing sleep came not to close her weary
eyelids. At intervals, indeed, a heavy slumber stole over her, but so
oppressive was its influence, that she struggled hard to regain her
senses. The night wore away, and the morning dawned, but it brought no
alleviation to her sorrow. At an early hour she rose from her couch,
and, as if led by an instinctive impulse, she drew near the window that
commanded a view of the garden. There, musing on the vision of her past
night, she was surprised by the entrance of Lisarda, one of her
attendants. She came bustling in with an air o