"On one of those sultry nights Virginia, restless and unhappy, arose, then
went again to rest, but could find in no attitude either slumber or repose.
At length she bent her way, by the light of the moon, towards her fountain,
and gazed at its spring, which, notwithstanding the drought, still flowed
like silver threads down the brown sides of the rock. She flung herself
into the basin; its coolness reanimated her spirits, and a thousand
soothing remembrances presented themselves to her mind. She recollected
that in her infancy her mother and Margaret amused themselves by bathing
her with Paul in this very spot; that Paul afterwards, reserving this bath
for her use only, had dug its bed, covered the bottom with sand, and sown
aromatic herbs around the borders. She saw, reflected through the water
upon her naked arms and bosom, the two cocoa trees which were planted at
her birth and that of her brother, and which interwove about her head their
green branches and young fruit. She thought of Paul's friendship, sweeter
than the odours, purer than the waters of the fountains, stronger than the
intertwining palm trees, and she sighed. Reflecting upon the hour of the
night, and the profound solitude, her imagination again grew disordered.
Suddenly she flew affrighted from those dangerous shades, and those waters
which she fancied hotter than the torrid sunbeam, and ran to her mother, in
order to find a refuge from herself.
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