260 THE PROSCRIBED. 



seen through the opening of the black surtout, an ecclesiastic might 

 have saluted him as a brother. Although he was but of the middle 

 height, he appeared tall, especially when one looked only at his face. 



" The hour has struck, the boat waits; will you not come?" 

 These words, spoken in bad French, resounded in the solemn silence 

 which reigned at the moment. As soon as they were uttered a 

 slight fluttering was heard in the other chamber, and, all at once, 

 the young man descended with the rapidity of a bird. When he 

 appeared, the lady's face flushed to purple, she started, trembled, 

 and made *a hasty veil of her white hands and taper fingers. Few 

 women but would have shared her deep emotion in contemplating 

 a young man of about twenty, but whose form and proportions were 

 so slight, that, at the first glance of the eye, you might have sup- 

 posed that you saw before you a youth still in his boyhood, or a 

 young girl in disguise. His black hood, like the biset worn by the 

 Basques, exposed to view a forehead white as snow, where grace 

 and innocence shone, and where was stamped an expression of 

 angelic softness, the reflection of a soul full of native good faith. A 

 poet's imagination would probably have led him to search there for 

 the star which, in I forget what tale, a mother supplicates the fairy 

 god-mother to imprint upon the brow of her infant abandoned, like 

 Moses, to the caprice of the waters. Love dwelt in the thousand 

 golden curls that fell in wanton luxuriousness on his shoulders. His 

 throat was white and admirably round, a veritable swan's neck ! His 

 blue eyes, full of life, swimming in softness, seemed a reflection of 

 the azure of the heavens themselves. His glance alone was en- 

 chantment. Then the features of his face, the turn of his forehead, 

 were of a fineness and delicacy to raise the enthusiasm of a painter 

 or a sculptor. That bloom of beauty which affects us so powerfully 

 in the faces of women, that exquisite purity in the lines, that lumi- 

 nous glory spread around the head of the adored one, were united 

 to a manly complexion, to a strength and firmness which formed 

 delightful contrasts. It was, in a word, one of those melodious 

 visages which, mute, speak to us, attract us towards them. This 

 youth was one of those gifted and privileged beings on whom nature 

 has bestowed the power of pleasing by the sight of them alone. 

 Nevertheless, after contemplating him with a little attention, there 

 might be perceived some of that blighting influence, the effect of 

 passion, or the too strong exercise of the mental powers, in the virgin 

 whiteness of the skin, and in a sort of dead verdure which gave to 

 his charming countenance some resemblance to a young leaf un- 

 folding its tender lineaments to the sun. 



Thus, never was opposition more decided nor more lively than 

 that which was offered by the union of these two beings. It was as 

 if one looked upon a graceful and feeble shrub, born in the hollow of 

 an old willow, which time has shorn of its leafy honours," ploughed 

 into furrows by the thunder, yet still, storm-stricken and decrepit, 

 one of those majestic willows, the admiration of painters and poets. 

 The timid shrub clings to its noble trunk as a shelter from the 

 tempest. The one was a god, the other was an angel this, the 



