although there was a sharpness in her laugh, and an abruptness in her sallies, which might have betrayed her secret to an attentive observer.  She went on, feeling that, if she had paused for a moment, the checked waters of misery would have deluged her soul, that her wrecked hopes would raise their wailing voices, and that those who now echoed her mirth, and provoked her repartees, would have shrunk in fear from her convulsive despair.  Her only consolation during the violence which she did herself, was to watch the motions of an illuminated clock, and internally count the moments which must elapse before she could be alone.

At length the rooms began to thin.  Mocking her own desires, she rallied her guests on their early departure.  One by one they left her—­at length she pressed the hand of her last visitor.  “How cold and damp your hand is,” said her friend; “you are over fatigued, pray hasten to rest.”  Perdita smiled faintly—­her guest left her; the carriage rolling down the street assured the final departure.  Then, as if pursued by an enemy, as if wings had been at her feet, she flew to her own apartment, she dismissed her attendants, she locked the doors, she threw herself wildly on the floor, she bit her lips even to blood to suppress her shrieks, and lay long a prey to the vulture of despair, striving not to think, while multitudinous ideas made a home of her heart; and ideas, horrid as furies, cruel as vipers, and poured in with such swift succession, that they seemed to jostle and wound each other, while they worked her up to madness.

At length she rose, more composed, not less miserable.  She stood before a large mirror—­she gazed on her reflected image; her light and graceful dress, the jewels that studded her hair, and encircled her beauteous arms and neck, her small feet shod in satin, her profuse and glossy tresses, all were to her clouded brow and woe-begone countenance like a gorgeous frame to a dark tempest-pourtraying picture.  “Vase am I,” she thought, “vase brimful of despair’s direst essence.  Farewell, Perdita! farewell, poor girl! never again will you see yourself thus; luxury and wealth are no longer yours; in the excess of your poverty you may envy the homeless beggar; most truly am I without a home!  I live on a barren desart, which, wide and interminable, brings forth neither fruit or flower; in the midst is a solitary rock, to which thou, Perdita, art chained, and thou seest the dreary level stretch far away.”

She threw open her window, which looked on the palace-garden.  Light and darkness were struggling together, and the orient was streaked by roseate and golden rays.  One star only trembled in the depth of the kindling atmosphere.  The morning air blowing freshly over the dewy plants, rushed into the heated room.  “All things go on,” thought Perdita, “all things proceed, decay, and perish!  When noontide has passed, and the weary day has driven her team to their western stalls, the fires of heaven rise from