herd, and sought some further recess, leaving the place to deeper stillness than before.
No one can feel gay by moonlight; the influence is as overpowering as it is solemn. There are a thousand mysterious sympathies, which act upon our nature, and for which we can render up no account; and the power of this mournful and subduing beauty may be more easily acknowledged than analysed. But the young, the buoyant, and the glad, feel it. They wander alone, and the thoughts unconsciously take a tone of tender melancholy. Alas! it is some dim prophecy of the future, with all its cares and its sorrows, that floats upon the atmosphere; and we are penetrated by the effect, though the cause be unrevealed.
Francesca deeply felt the sadness of the hour: more than once she stopped to dash aside the tears that fell thick and fast; and with even more than usual tenderness did her thoughts revert to the dead and to the departed. She felt so isolated—so thrown back upon herself. "How different," thought she, "would my destiny have been, had Evelyn been less unworthy of the great and true love which I bore him! Good God! is the heart a light thing, to be so trifled with? How has that brief period coloured my whole existence!
