Dariel's room! I had never been in the shrine of my divinity till now; and when I was there I could look at nothing except her entrancing presence. She was resting upon something--it might have been a cloud, for all that I could tell about it. The soft light fell upon the sweetest face that heaven itself ever shone upon; and I tried to speak, but no words came; neither could I look upon her as I longed to do. If she had been too much for me out of doors, what possibility was left me here? "My child," said her father,--for she too was silent, which emboldened me to steal an ecstatic dream of the petals of a blush-rose fluttering on her face,--"my child, I have brought our kind friend, Mr. Cranleigh, who has placed us under so many obligations, to say good-bye, or at least good-night; for I hope that we may see him again before we leave. We have taken you a little by surprise, I fear." "But it is a pleasant surprise, dear father. I was a little--what is the proper English word?--melancholy? No, I can never be that with you. But sorry, perhaps,--out of spirits, is it so? We have been so happy in this very tranquil rest." "It is true," replied Sûr Imar, as he turned to me; "perhaps we shall never have so smooth a time again. It is like the beginning of a new life to us. But Dariel knows that we must not think of our own comfort only." "No, but of our lives--of your life, father. What does it matter to me where I go? But we are travelling from a land where you are safe to a country of savages, where there is no law, but everybody burning to kill everybody else." "A pretty description of your native land! It is the air of this country, Mr. Cranleigh. My daughter has breathed it so long that she believes that there is no other excellence under the sun. We know that it has some such effect upon the natives. But why should it be so with a little foreign girl? Dariel, my dear, I feel ashamed of you?" "Oh, how much better does he know than that!" the loving daughter exclaimed, as she placed both hands upon his shoulders and her face among his beard, whose dark cascade spared a silver rill or two to glisten through the sable of the young abundance; and thence she looked at me with a snug composure, as if to ask, "What do you want with passion? This is affection, if you please. This is all that a sweet girl needs." And then she very calmly stroked his moustache up, and put her lips to his, and kept them there, till I could almost hope that he might prove to have taken a taste of garlic. But perhaps if he had, it would have been all the same to her. "You see what our manners are," said the father, with a laugh; "we have not quite attained the proper self-command, I fear." And then I had my revenge; for Dariel blushed as if she had done an outrageous thing, and whispered, "Oh, I beg your pardon!"