Page:The Keepsake for 1838.djvu/214

 I had seen in my dream. The white rose bloomed before me; and conspicuous in the red evening light, surrounded too by the most fragrant flowers and beautiful shrubs, appeared the mossy roof of the small hermitage. While I gazed around me in an amazement almost amounting to terror, the door of this building opened, and an angelic figure, clothed in white, advanced from it. It was the counterpart of the lovely vision I had beheld! Nothing was wanting but the silver stars on the spotless drapery. Then, as though fate had ordained that even their actions should correspond, she took the watering-pan, and gracefully refreshed the thirsty plants around her.

The gardener whispered to me,

“That is my young lady; we must not disturb her—she likes to walk here alone, in the evening.\”

When I turned away with my conductor, she perceived me. She slightly started; and a faint blush overspread her countenance; but quickly recovering herself, with the same gentle grace which had enchanted me in my dream, she inclined her head to me as she passed, and then slowly withdrew.

No words can express the thrilling feelings which this marvellous coincidence excited in me. Even those who may be the least disposed to regard dreams as possessing any mystic connection with the world of life and reality, yet, if in my place, could not have failed to acknowledge that this entire fulfilment of all the minutest particulars of mine, was almost miraculous. In my heart, I confess, it engendered the idea that some close intercourse between the lady and myself was destined to ensue; and already my wishes rambled out of the dusky sphere of anxiety, into the bright land of hope.

I heard now from my conductor that the name of this lovely creature was Adelaide; and that she was the daughter of the Baron Bentheim, to whom the castle and the extensive lands around belonged.