Page:Legends of Rubezahl, and Other Tales (1845).djvu/108

 grounds she visited an orchard filled with trees, whose golden fruit surpassed the highest efforts of mortal culture. Each grove, each tree, was crowded with song-birds, whose melodious throats sent forth, in every direction, the most ravishing strains. The gnome, encircling the fair one’s waist with one arm, trod the arched walks in perfect ecstacy; his eyes fixed unceasingly on hers, and his ear drinking with intoxication each word that fell, in gentle tones, from her honey mouth. In all his long, long, long life, never had he experienced aught resembling the rapture of this, his first love!

But Emma was far from being equally happy; pensiveness clouded her brow; she was oppressed with that soft, that undefined melancholy, which oftentimes renders beauty doubly interesting, by exciting sympathy as well as passion. This state of mind did not escape Rubezahl, who endeavoured to dispel it by his caresses; but in vain.

“Ah!” said he within himself, after a brief meditation, “the human race, like the bees and ants, are of a social disposition; my charming mistress needs other company than mine; and, after all, perhaps the society of a husband only may not always be sufficient for a wife. For to whom is she to communicate things she may not deem it expedient to talk about to her lord? With whom can she hold council on the choice of her dresses? Was Eve able long to