I looked up with a cry of delight; I saw her unclosed eyes, her smiling lips, her hand extended towards mine, and heard these words: "O God! I thank thee. I have now a brother!"
The cool morning air had awakened her, while I was praying by her bedside, with my face buried in my hands. She had noted my ardent pity, and my ardent prayer, and had recognized me by the clear light of morning, which now streamed into the chamber. When she had fainted she was lonely and indifferent, and had revived under the tender care, and perhaps the love of a pitying stranger. She, who, in the neglected flower of her days, had been deprived of all the kindred ties of the heart, had unexpectedly found in me the care and pity, the tears and prayers, of a youthful brother; and that tender name had escaped her lips at the moment that returning life gave her the consciousness of so great a joy.
"A brother! Ah, no, not a brother!" I exclaimed, reverently removing her hand from my brow, as though I had not been worthy of her touch, "not a brother, but a slave, a living shadow following on your steps, who asks but one blessing of Heaven, and one felicity on earth--the right of remembering this night; who only desires to preserve eternally the image of the superhuman vision he would wish to follow unto death, or for whom alone he could bear to live." As I faltered out these words in a low voice, the rosy tints of life gradually reappeared on her cheeks, a sad smile, implying an obstinate unbelief in happiness, played round her mouth, and she raised her eyes to the ceiling, as though they listened to words which responded not to the ear, but to the thoughts. Never was the change from life to death, from a dream to reality, so rapid; on her countenance, now blooming with youth and refreshed by rest, surprise, languor, delight, repose, joy and melancholy, timidity and grace were all painted in quick succession. Her radiance seemed to illumine the dark recess more than the light of morning. There existed more languor, more revealings, more sympathy in her looks and silence, than in millions of words. The human face speaks a language to the eye, and in youth the countenance is an instrument of which one look of passion sweeps the keys. It transmits from soul to soul mysteries of mute communion, which cannot be translated into words. My countenance, too, must have revealed what I felt to those eyes which were bent so earnestly upon me. My damp clothes, my long, dishevelled hair, my eyes heavy with watching, my pale and anxious looks, the pious enthusiasm with which I bent before the holiness of suffering beauty, my emotion, joy, and surprise, the dimness of the room in which I durst not take a step for fear of dispelling the enchantment of so divine a dream, the first rays of sun, which showed the tears still glistening in my eyes,--all conspired to lend to my countenance a power of expression, and a look of tenderness, which it will doubtless never wear again in the course of a long life.