- ceived that she spoke, but in so low a tone, that he
knew she slept.
He approached. She lay wrapped in sleep; a sweet and celestial smile played upon her countenance, and irradiated her features with a tenfold expression of etheriality. Suddenly the visions of her slumbers appeared to have changed; the smile yet remained, but its expression was melancholy; tears stole gently from under her eyelids:—she sighed.
Ah! with what eagerness of ecstasy did Fitzeustace lean over her form! He dared not speak, he dared not move; but pressing a ringlet of hair which had escaped its band, to his lips, waited silently.
"Yes, yes; I think—it may" at last she muttered; but so confusedly, as scarcely to be distinguishable.
Fitzeustace remained rooted in rapturous attention, listening.
"I thought, I thought he looked as if he could love me," scarcely articulated the sleeping Eloise. "Perhaps, though he may not love me, he may allow me to love him.—Fitzeustace!"
On a sudden, again were changed the visions of her slumbers; terrified she started from sleep, and cried, "Fitzeustace!"
CHAPTER XII.
For love is heaven, and heaven is love.
Lay of the Last Minstrel.
Needless were it to expatiate on their transports;
they loved each other, and that is enough
for those who have felt like Eloise and Fitzeustace.
One night, rather later indeed than it was Mount-
