Then, Julia, let me woo thee,
Thus, thus to come unto me,
And when I shall meet
Thy silvery feet,
My soul I'll pour into thee.
The song might or might not have been intended in compliment to
the fair Julia, for so I found his partner was called; she,
however, was certainly unconscious of any such application, for
she never looked at the singer, but kept her eyes cast upon the
floor. Her face was suffused, it is true, with a beautiful blush,
and there was a gentle heaving of the bosom, but all that was
doubtless caused by the exercise of the dance; indeed, so great
was her indifference that she amused herself with plucking to
pieces a choice bouquet of hot-house flowers, and by the time the
song was concluded the nosegay lay in ruins on the floor.
The party now broke up for the night with the kind-hearted old
custom of shaking hands. As I passed through the hall on my way
to my chamber, the dying embers of the Yule-clog still sent forth
a dusky glow, and had it not been the season when "no spirit
dares stir abroad," I should have been half tempted to steal from
my room at midnight and peep whether the fairies might not be at
their revels about the hearth.
My chamber was in the old part of the mansion, the ponderous
furniture of which might have been fabricated in the days of the
giants.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321