. . . . .

Every obstacle was now removed; parents and relations at last gave up all opposition, and the young pair were united.  Never was there a lovelier,—­they seemed like angels who had only anticipated by a few years their celestial and eternal union.  The marriage was solemnized with much pomp, and a few days after there was a feast in that very wainscoted chamber which you paused to remark was so gloomy.  It was that night hung with rich tapestry, representing the exploits of the Cid, particularly that of his burning a few Moors who refused to renounce their accursed religion.  They were represented beautifully tortured, writhing and howling, and “Mahomet!  Mahomet!” issuing out of their mouths, as they called on him in their burning agonies;—­you could almost hear them scream.  At the upper end of the room, under a splendid estrade, over which was an image of the blessed Virgin, sat Donna Isabella de Cardoza, mother to the bride, and near her Donna Ines, the bride, on rich almohadas; the bridegroom sat opposite to her, and though they never spoke to each other, their eyes, slowly raised, but suddenly withdrawn (those eyes that blushed), told to each other the delicious secret of their happiness.  Don Pedro de Cardoza had assembled a large party in honor of his daughter’s nuptials; among them was an Englishman of the name of Melmoth, a traveler; no one knew who had brought him there.  He sat silent like the rest, while the iced waters and the sugared wafers were presented to the company.  The night was intensely hot, and the moon glowed like a sun over the ruins of Saguntum; the embroidered blinds flapped heavily, as if the wind made an effort to raise them in vain, and then desisted.

(Another defect in the manuscript occurred here, but it was soon supplied.)

. . . . .

The company were dispersed through various alleys of the garden; the bridegroom and bride wandered through one where the delicious perfume of the orange trees mingled itself with that of the myrtles in blow.  On their return to the ball, both of them asked, Had the company heard the exquisite sounds that floated through the garden just before they quitted it?  No one had heard them.  They expressed their surprise.  The Englishman had never quitted the hall; it was said he smiled with a most particular and extraordinary expression as the remark was made.  His silence had been noticed before, but it was ascribed to his ignorance of the Spanish language, an ignorance that Spaniards are not anxious either to expose or remove by speaking to a stranger.  The subject of the music was not again reverted to till the guests were seated at supper, when Donna Ines and her young husband, exchanging a smile of delighted surprise, exclaimed they heard the same delicious sounds floating round them.  The guests listened, but no one else could hear it;—­everyone felt there