University of Virginia Library

6. CHAPTER SIXTH.
THE WIZARD'S DAUGHTER.

Before the mirror stood a Maiden, gazing upon the reflected beauty of
her dark eyes, the reflected loveliness of her half-bared bosom—

—These words may seem very abrupt and somewhat rude, but when
you have taken in the entire details of the picture, you will agree with
me, that it was a sight altogether interesting—perchance beautiful.—

It was not an oval mirror, framed in a narrow rim of carved walnut,
and placed upon an antique dressing-bureau. Nor was it encircled by a
frame of showy gilt, with golden flowers and golden Cupids strown about
its brightness.

It was a square mirror, framed by the dark paneling of the maiden's
chamber, and reaching from the ceiling to the floor.

Before it, with the light shining on her forehead, and a robe of dark velvet
flowing from her left shoulder over her form, and flowing in folds by no
means constrained or formal, stood a girl of eighteen years, whose eyes,
and brows, and hair were all intensely black.

Her complexion was brown, but a clear, rich brown, more beautiful to
look upon than the fairest blonde. For in the centre of each swelling
cheek, and on her lips, through whose intervals her white teeth were seen,
that brown complexion bloomed into the rosiest red.

The eyes were dark and very bright, but the half-closed lids and the
long lashes veiled their brightness, and subdued it into a dreamy languor.

Her hair was turned aside from her forehead, and bound at the back of
her head, in a mass of glossy blackness. But part of it, not so much a
tress, as two or three tresses linked together, escaping from the cincture,
floated down her cheek, and made her bared shoulder look more white
and beautiful, as it trembled over its faultless outlines.

In her left hand she held the lamp, while, with her right arm bent,
she clasped the mantle to her bosom, that mantle, whose loose-flowing
folds marked the outlines of her shape, and left her naked feet bare to
the light.

The light streamed warmly over her face, tinted her dark hair, and
showed a gleam of the white bosom, heaving beneath the golden fringe
of the black mantle.

That face is full of character. It speaks the soul. The languid eyelids,
and the parted lips; the cheek glowing into crimson, and the eye
veiled in a dewy moisture—all speak of a warm, nay, a passionate
organization.

But the white forehead, rendered more distinct in every outline by the

black hair, tossed aside in glossy masses, tells of an intellectual — perchance
an ambitious organization.

Nor does the form, whose outlines are betrayed by the loosely flowing
folds of velvet, lack expression, at once decided and bewitching.

The bared left arm glows softly in the light, with its clear skin and
round outlines, and tapers into the white hand, whose palm is velvety
whose fingers seem like transparent marble, warmed by a rosy radiance.

The bust is round, full, like a flower, that only demands another moment,
to ripen it into perfect bloom. The waist is slender, but by no
means like the waist of a fashion-plate or a wasp. The small feet, relieved
by the dark matting on which they rest, harmonize with the hands
and indicate, by their delicacy of outline, the voluptuous fulness of the
maiden's form.

And in the mirror, framed in the dark paneling, and reaching from the
ceiling to the floor, she beholds that form, and gazes in dreamy languor
upon the warm loveliness of her face.

The room, in which she stands, may claim our passing glance. It is
square, paneled with dark wood, with a door in the south, a recess on the
north, a window looking to the east, over a waste of frozen snow, just
silvered by the rising moon.

The dark wood is carved with the faces of nymphs, fauns, satyrs,
cupids and devils, with here and there a mask, or a cluster of flowers, or
a garland of leaves.

The recess is veiled from our sight by curtains of purple tapestry, that
look black in the candle-light, and fall with their golden fringe upon the
floor.

The floor is polished, until it resembles a mirror; the dark matting
on which the maiden stands, an antique dressing-bureau, and two chairs,
cumbrous with carvings and embroidery, alone break the uniformity of its
glittering surface.

The curtains of snowy whiteness, which sometimes veil the window,
are now drawn aside, and the moonlight comes through the narrow
panes, and shines in a line of light along the floor.

Altogether, it is a beautiful picture; this room, paneled with dark
wood, with a beautiful girl standing in its centre, the light shining above her
head, revealing another maiden, as lovely as herself, smiling upon her
from the mirror, into whose brightness she is gazing.

And as she stands there, surveying with voluptuous languor the image
of her own loveliness, reflected in the mirror, the dead silence is broken
by a sudden, sharp sound.

The mirror moves—it trembles like a smooth lake into which a pebble
is thrown—it passes slowly aside, and disappears within the panel. A
deep recess is visible, where, but a moment since, the mirror shone.

The maiden trembles, she utters a sudden cry of terror, and sinks on

her knees, the robe still clasped to her bosom, her unbound hair waving
over her shoulders.

Her cheek becomes as pale as death. No longer veiled in languid
moisture, no longer hidden under the downcast lid, her eye dilates—
flashes with terror.

There is a form in the recess—is it but an Apparition roused from the
shadows of the Other World, or the form of a human being?

The maiden raises her eyes—for a moment the deathly paleness of her
face struggles with a rosy bloom—and then, blushing over her cheek, her
neck and her bosom, which pants suddenly into light, that flush fires her
face with a warm, voluptuous beauty.

With a gesture of involuntary joy, she raises her arms, and casts her
fallen tresses aside from her white shoulder—

“The Monk of Wissahikon!”

And once more, over the cheek, and brow, and bosom, she blushes
like a new-born summer morning.