How do our desires grow with our hopes! how does the possession of one blessing, quicken and inflame our thirst after others!--but a little while before, and Sebastian was indifferent to every thing; now, the smallest of his expectations was considered with lively interest: he contemplated his reception at Brazil, and his restoration to Portugal, with the anxiety of a spirit newly roused to action; and secure of domestic felicity, felt that no other station than that to which he was born, could fill the expansion of his large soul. It is not difficult to communicate our own fire to a heart that lives only to reflect the feelings of ours. Kara Aziek lent not merely a docile, but a delighted ear, to the animated discourses of her lover. He talked to her of the charms of empire, of the sublime privilege of diffusing comfort and protection throughout nations; he painted the trials and the triumphs of that virtue which belongs to exalted stations, its fame here, its immortal reward hereafter; he spoke to her then of those softer joys which public duties endear and enhance; those delightful throbbings of the heart, sacred to the names of husband and of father, which contrasted with the severer virtues of royalty, seem like the serene beatitude of Heaven. His voice, his eyes, his smiles, heightened the effect of his eloquence: Kara Aziek no longer saw before her the captive Fabian, but the powerful monarch of Portugal and the two Indies, who, in selecting her from all the world to share his throne and to fill his heart, was yielding the most delicious proof of his tenderness; she saw in him only a beneficent (not an ambitious) sovereign, who sought to extend the dominion of happiness. At these moments she kindled with congenial enthusiasm, and her soul soaring after his, left far below its first humble and personal wishes. But how were these ardours chilled, these transports arrested in their flight, by the spirit with which Sebastian spoke of his wrongs! he thirsted for vengeance: with the expectation of one day returning to take his place amongst the monarchs of Europe, came the fatal belief that he must wash out his stains in the blood of his injurers. At mention of Don Antonio, a terrible light flamed on his brow, his limbs shook, and his articulation became smothered; every look and every word announced still that imperious and fierce character which had so often in Barbary blazed before Kara Aziek like sudden earth-fires. Her soft nature trembled and grieved; for it was to this intemperance of feeling, this want of self-government, that all his misfortunes were attributable; while it continued to rule him, there was no security for his happiness either on a throne or in a cloister.