substantial, supernatural vision; but at this moment my hand fell upon the scarf, which I had now bound round my chest. The touch roused me from my painful reveries, and hope pervaded my breast. I started from the ground convinced that she did exist, I fell upon my knees, and uttered aloud a prayer to the Divinity to make me worthy of her. Hardly had the words passed my lips, when a loud hoarse laugh sounded on my ear. It was but a drunkard laughing at some wild imagination of his own; but it made me shudder. I left the town; a heavy thick rain was falling, there was no wind, nothing seemed stirring, the shape of the distant mountains could be perceived by the white mass they presented on the dark canopy of night; every thing else was of one dead hue. I leant myself against the trunk of an old tree, and the dawn had, unperceived by me, risen in the east, when I found myself roused by the salutations of many of my comrades.
C 4
