and looking towards the south, in a recess overshadowed by the straggling branches of a wild fig-tree, I saw foundations dug, and props and rafters fixed, evidently the commencement of a cottage; standing on its unfinished threshold, the tomb was at our right-hand, the whole ravine, and plain, and azure sea immediately before us; the dark rocks received a glow from the descending sun, which glanced along the cultivated valley, and dyed in purple and orange the placid waves; we sat on a rocky elevation, and I gazed with rapture on the beauteous panorama of living and changeful colours, which varied and enhanced the graces of earth and ocean.

“Did I not do right,” said Perdita, “in having my loved one conveyed hither?  Hereafter this will be the cynosure of Greece.  In such a spot death loses half its terrors, and even the inanimate dust appears to partake of the spirit of beauty which hallows this region.  Lionel, he sleeps there; that is the grave of Raymond, he whom in my youth I first loved; whom my heart accompanied in days of separation and anger; to whom I am now joined for ever.  Never—­mark me—­never will I leave this spot.  Methinks his spirit remains here as well as that dust, which, uncommunicable though it be, is more precious in its nothingness than aught else widowed earth clasps to her sorrowing bosom.  The myrtle bushes, the thyme, the little cyclamen, which peep from the fissures of the rock, all the produce of the place, bear affinity to him; the light that invests the hills participates in his essence, and sky and mountains, sea and valley, are imbued by the presence of his spirit.  I will live and die here!

“Go you to England, Lionel; return to sweet Idris and dearest Adrian; return, and let my orphan girl be as a child of your own in your house.  Look on me as dead; and truly if death be a mere change of state, I am dead.  This is another world, from that which late I inhabited, from that which is now your home.  Here I hold communion only with the has been, and to come.  Go you to England, and leave me where alone I can consent to drag out the miserable days which I must still live.”

A shower of tears terminated her sad harangue.  I had expected some extravagant proposition, and remained silent awhile, collecting my thoughts that I might the better combat her fanciful scheme.  “You cherish dreary thoughts, my dear Perdita,” I said, “nor do I wonder that for a time your better reason should be influenced by passionate grief and a disturbed imagination.  Even I am in love with this last home of Raymond’s; nevertheless we must quit it.”

“I expected this,” cried Perdita; “I supposed that you would treat me as a mad, foolish girl.  But do not deceive yourself; this cottage is built by my order; and here I shall remain, until the hour arrives when I may share his happier dwelling.”

“My dearest girl!”