Suddenly the student started, stood up, and, with outstretched neck, and eyes riveted on the trees, he listened, scarce daring to breathe. The foliage opened, and the face of a young girl was revealed to his gaze. "Christine!" he exclaimed.
Christine stepped upon the trunk of the lowest tree, and seated herself with address on this pliant bench, which her weight, slight as it was, caused to yield and rock. One of her hands, extended through the branches that drooped towards the water, reached that of her lover, who tenderly clasped it. Then she drew herself up again, and the tree, less loaded, seemed to obey her will by imitating her movement. The young man sat in his boat, with eyes uplifted towards the willow on which his love reposed.
Christine Van Amberg had none of the distinguishing features of the country of her birth. Hair black as the raven's wing formed a frame to a face full of energy and expression. Her large eyes were dark and penetrating; her eyebrows, strongly marked and almost straight, would perhaps have imparted too decided a character to her young head, if a charming expression of candour and naïveté had not given her the countenance of a child rather than of a woman. Christine was fifteen years of age. A slender silver circlet bound her brow and jet-black tresses—a holiday ornament, according to her country's custom: but her greatest festival was the sight of her lover. She wore a simple muslin dress of a pale blue colour; a black silk mantle, intended to envelop her figure, was placed upon her hair, and fell back upon her shoulders, as if the better to screen her from the gaze of the curious. Seated on a tree trunk, surrounded by branches and beside the water, like Shakespeare's Ophelia, Christine was charming. But although young, beautiful, and beloved, deep melancholy was the characteristic of her features. Her companion, too, gazed mournfully at her, with eyes to which the tears seemed about to start.
"Herbert," said the young girl, stooping towards her lover, "Herbert, be not so sad! we are both too young to despair of life. Herbert! better times will come."
"Christine! they have refused me your hand, expelled me your dwelling; they would separate us entirely: they will succeed, to-morrow perhaps!..."
"Never!" exclaimed the young girl, with a glance like the lightning's flash. But, like that flash, the expression of energy was momentary, and gave way to one of calm melancholy.
"If you would, Christine, if you would! ... how easy were it to fly together, to unite our destinies on a foreign shore, and to live for each other, happy and forgotten!... I will lead you to those glorious lands where the sun shines as you see it in your dreams—to the summit of lofty mountains whence the eye discovers a boundless horizon—to noble forests with their thousand tints of green, where the fresh breeze shall quicken your cheek, and sweep from your memory these fogs, this humid clime, these monotonous plains. Our days shall pass blissfully in a country worthy of our loves."
As Herbert spoke, the young girl grew animated; she seemed to see what he described, her eager eye sought the horizon as though she would over-leap it, her lips parted as to inhale the mountain breeze. Then she passed her hand hastily across her eyes, and sighed deeply. "No!" she exclaimed; "no, I must remain here!... Herbert, it is my country: why does it make me suffer? I remember another sky, another land,—but no, it is a dream! I was born here, and have scarcely passed the boundary of this meadow. My mother sang too often beside my cradle the ballads and boleros of her native Seville; she told me too much of Spain, and I love that unknown land as one pines after an absent friend!"