Page:The Enchanted Knights; or The Chronicle of the Three Sisters.djvu/58

46 deavoured to appear unconcerned, her heart palpitated feverishly, and a stranger to dissimulation and deceit, her bosom heaved strangely and quickly, her lips and cheeks, glowing a moment before, now all at once grew of a deadly hue. The dolphin notwithstanding his fishy nature, was still physiognomist enough to perceive by those symptoms that there was something wrong, he made wry grimaces, and departed with the swiftness of an arrow, compassed the palace three times, and made such an ado that the crystal building was shaken, and the trembling Bertha believed that he would instantly crash it, but, with all his prying, finding nought to strengthen his suspicion, and having fortunately by his capers so dimmed the water that he was unable to see the state of his terrified spouse, he began to grow cooler, and swam away. Bertha recovered from her anxiety, and Reginald remained quietly in the wood cellar till the time of the transformation arrived, and, although my lord dolphin did not appear to have dismissed all suspicion (as he never forgot to make the round of the house three times a day), he behaved no more in so furious a manner as at first. The hour of transformation at last arrived to deliver the patient prisoner from his solitary dwelling.