Page:Specimens of German Romance (Volume 2).djvu/42

 would be hard to describe the strange feelings which were now thronging and jostling in his bosom.

The whole appearance of the stranger, in spite of all her grace and loveliness, had yet something supernatural about it, which those, who had not Peregrine's awe of woman, would yet have received with a cold shudder through every vein; of course, therefore, a deep horror seized the poor Peregrine, already in sufficient alarm, when he found the lady most narrowly informed of all that he had been doing in the profoundest solitude. Still, when he looked up, and met the glance of two bright black eyes flashing from under the silken lids—when he felt the sweet breath of the lovely being, and the electric warmth of her limbs—still, with all his terror, there awoke in him the sadness of unutterable desires, such as he had not yet known. For the first time his whole mode of life, his trifling with the Christmas presents, appeared to him absurd and childish, and he felt ashamed that the stranger should know of it; but then again it seemed as if her gift was