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 eyes expressed his feelings: but even the little pleasure derived from a restrained conversation, and those glances, he was soon deprived of; for as the Countess rose to repair to the banqueting-house, a party of her friends surrounded her and Madeline, and rendered all his efforts to rejoin the latter unsuccessful. The gentleman who had been prevented by him from dancing with Madeline, now led her in triumph to the supper-table, and seated her between the Countess and himself. Had the mind of Madeline been less occupied by its own immediate concerns than it now was, she would have been delighted with the scene exhibited to her view; the beautiful foliage that crept through the roof of the building was intermixed with lights which glittered like so many stars amongst it; and its drooping boughs were carelessly intermingled with festoons of coloured lamps that hung between the pillars, through which a grand perspective of illuminated arches were seen terminated in a dark grove, from whence the softest music stole, and seemed