“’Tis plain,” thought Antonio, “my presence is indifferent, if not irksome to her.  She has noticed my admiration, and is determined to discourage it; nothing but a feeling of gratitude prevents her treating me with marked distaste—­and then has she not another lover, rich, gallant, splendid, musical? how can I suppose she would turn her eyes from so brilliant a cavalier, to a poor obscure student, raking among the cinders of her father’s laboratory?”

Indeed, the idea of the amorous serenader continually haunted his mind.  He felt convinced that he was a favoured lover; yet, if so, why did he not frequent the tower?—­why did he not make his approaches by noon-day?  There was mystery in this eavesdropping and musical courtship.  Surely Inez could not be encouraging a secret intrigue!  Oh! no! she was too artless, too pure, too ingenuous!  But then the Spanish females were so prone to love and intrigue; and music and moonlight were so seductive, and Inez had such a tender soul languishing in every look.—­“Oh!” would the poor scholar exclaim, clasping his hands, “oh, that I could but once behold those loving eyes beaming on me with affection!”

It is incredible to those who have not experienced it, on what scanty aliment human life and human love may be supported.  A dry crust, thrown now and then to a starving man, will give him a new lease of existence; and a faint smile, or a kind look, bestowed at casual intervals, will keep a lover loving on, when a man in his sober senses would despair.

When Antonio found himself alone in the laboratory, his mind would be haunted by one of these looks, or smiles, which he had received in passing.  He would set it in every possible light, and argue on it with all the self-pleasing, self-teasing logic of a lover.

The country around him was enough to awaken that voluptuousness of feeling so favourable to the growth of passion.  The window of the tower rose above the trees of the romantic valley of the Darro, and looked down upon some of the loveliest scenery of the Vega, where groves of citron and orange were refreshed by cool springs and brooks of the purest water.

The Xenel and the Darro wound their shining streams along the plain, and gleamed from among its bowers.  The surrounding hills were covered with vineyards, and the mountains, crowned with snow, seemed to melt into the blue sky.  The delicate airs that played about the tower were perfumed by the fragrance of myrtle and orange-blossoms, and the ear was charmed with the fond warbling of the nightingale, which, in these happy regions, sings the whole day long.  Sometimes, too, there was the idle song of the muleteer, sauntering along the solitary road; or the notes of the guitar, from some group of peasants dancing in the shade.  All these were enough to fill the head of the young lover with poetic fancies; and Antonio would picture to himself how he could loiter among those happy groves, and wander by those gentle rivers, and love away his life with Inez.