y perceived every object, every feature of the surrounding
scene.

Tranquil and quiet the country and the city lay in religious silence,
and the gentle hum of humanity that softly stole upon the ear, and the
tinkling of a bell, or the social bark of a dog, every well-known sound
struck with a congeniality of feeling on the trembling heart of
Theodora. She returned to her home like the happy traveller after a
lapse of many years, to whose memory charged with numberless objects
that have intervened since his departure, these infant scenes must
return in a confused, fading, yet pleasing sensation of delight.
Theodora came; she drew near the place of her birth with anxiety and
dread. Around she beheld every object as she had left it. Nature had
proceeded undisturbed in her accustomed rotation. Green were the fields,
and the boundless heavens still displayed their majestic grandeur. Yet,
all around, to the eyes of Theodora, bore a tint of strangeness she
could not well define. Alas! the change was not in those places, but in
the tone of mind with which she considered them. Guadix and its gardens,
and its groves, and its fountains, were still the same, but Theodora was
changed. She had left those happy scenes in all the glory of youth and
beauty. She returned experienced in grief in the beginning of life, and
bearing in those heavenly features the iron stamp of premature decay.
She had left them in the wild delirium of love,--in the intoxicating
bliss of a first all-powerful affection, lavishly bestowed, and
abundantly requited. She returned with a heart desolate and forlorn,
the pure springs of which were envenomed by the baneful effects of
passion, and embittered with shame and grief. She had left them in the
happy society of a fond lover, full of present joy and glowing hopes of
future happiness. She returned full of disappointment and remorse, under
the protection of an apostate, the dark enemy of her country. These sad
images obtruded upon her mind, and to such dismal thoughts was
superadded the load of fear and anxiety arising from the uncertainty of
her offended parent's reception. She was his only child, tenderly loved
and cherished; but yet, would not this very love offer obstacles to a
reconciliation? Would not her father's unbounded kindness serve to set
off in blacker colours her own cruel ingratitude?

With these gloomy ideas she at length reached the threshold of the
paternal dwelling. There was a melancholy ca