Zorilda cared little about want of comfort, but she wished herself far from the riotous scene in which the sense of hearing, if not of sight, was soon to be involved.
Rachel exerted herself to do as much for her mistress' accommodation, as the case would admit. A small table and an arm-chair were provided, and "now, my dear child," said the kind hearted creature, "that I have at last seen you fairly seated, I will go and see if I cannot fetch you a cup of hot coffee, and a nice dry toast." Carriages arrived, and the company poured in like a torrent. A band of music began to play. Zorilda had never heard so full a harmony of instruments since she left her native country, and the effect was magical. The musicians gave a popular Spanish air, to which, when an infant of three years old, she had often danced with a little pair of castanets. The stores of memory seemed suddenly unlocked. Her nurse, her cottage, the grove of chestnuts, the kind visitor whom she called her father, all were pictured in her mind's eye with the most vivid colouring, and as if called by fairy wand from a world of shadows to live again on earth.
"Oh! why cannot I remember thee, beloved mother," she exclaimed, as opening her precious packet which lay folded in her bosom, she pressed the lovely image to her breast; "but no sound of melody can, with mysterious power, strike upon that chord, and draw forth strains of 'linked sweetness.' I was too young when torn from this snowy pillow, to see, to feel the heavenly mildness of that eye, the tender pathos of that smile."
The rooms filled, and all the "laughter loving Gods" were busy in producing such a din, that Zorilda's head ached from an uproar so uncongenial with her spirits.
"Can this be pleasure?" said she, as she listened to the vapid jest, the unmeaning laugh, the idle listless talk, which, penetrating the thin screen that separated her from the throng, came upon her unwilling ear. "Yes, these are the joys of which Algernon used to tell me, and joys perhaps they might have seemed, if tasted in his society; but I resemble the blind who live _within_, and imagination, which is most active when things external are shut out, weaves her web of 'sweet and bitter fancies,' which are little accordant with the world's opinions."