detains her here. She will experience some tedious hours, when she will not be displeased to meet with a friendly intercourse, nor avoid a virtuous conversation. If I prove so happy as to make mine agreeable, I shall have great hopes of something more. If I gain her confidence, friendship will follow, of course; and friendship in different sexes, is nearly allied to love.
Whilst he indulged himself with these pleasing reflections, his eyes wandering on the beautiful scenes of the valley, he heard at some distance, the very voice whose melody he had been so often told of, which raised an emotion in his heart as great as if it had been an accident unexpected. She sung the following words:—
Sweet Solitudo! to which I fly,
Of every bliss bereft;
There affliction’s cup enjoy,
The only boon that’s left.
These melancholy complaints pierced Fonrose’s tender heart. Ah! whence the grief that consumes her what pleasure to afford her comfort! He durst not as yet raise his hopes any higher. It might perhaps alarm her, if he yielded to his impatient longing to behold her; it was sufficient for the first time to have heard the sweetness of her voice. Next morning Fonrose went to the pastures, and having observed which way the lovely shepherdess directed her flock, he sat himself at the foot of tho rock, which the day before had echoed with her moving sounds. Fonrose, with all the grace of outward form, possessed every talent, every endowment that the nobility study to attain. He played upon the hautboy as well as Beluzzi, of whom he had learned, and who was at that time the delight of the courts of Europe.
Adelaide, absorbed in melancholy, had not yet begun her melodious strains. The echoes were silent; when on a sudden that silence was interrupted by tho sweet notes of Fonrose’s hautboy. A harmony so uncommon filled her with amazemont, mixed with some emotion.
