Page:Popular Tales of the Germans (Volume 1).djvu/271

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OF THE VEIL.
253

well-proportioned oval—for ſo much of her former ſelf remained—had been hitherto rounded by a whimſical idea; but it was now elongated a good inch in the line from the forehead to the chin: ‘Inconſiderate young man,’ ſaid ſhe, ‘how could you devote your heart to a miſtreſs, of whom you know not whether ſhe has ever exiſted, whether ſhe is your contemporary, and ſtill leſs whether ſhe can return your love? Your preſentiments have not deceived you indeed; this fair portrait is neither a fiction nor the monument of a beauty of paſt ages; it belongs to a young maiden, whoſe name is Calliſta—once, alas! my darling daughter! but now a wretch deſerving pity. She can never be yours: her boſom glows with an inextinguiſhable flame for a villain, whom a ſpace of many hundred miles ſeparates from her; for though ſhe has had firmneſs to eſcape from his inſidious wiles, yet ſhe ſtill doats upon him, and now, in the re-‘tirement