"But its memory remains. What then am I to call you? To say, 'Miss Rose', or 'Miss Trecarrel,' after the events of that day would seem both strange and distant. You are always 'Rose' to me--in my heart, I mean." "Fiddlestick! do be sensible. Call me--well, you need not call me anything that may compromise either the past, the present, or the future." "Oh, how unkind of you," said he, eyeing her with a somewhat dubious expression. "Poor Denzil," she replied, looking down; "I would to Heaven you were not so fond of me." "Fond, is not the word, Rose--but why?" "Because I was only flirting with you, as I have done with others," replied the laughing girl, with a cruelty that was perhaps unintentional, as she was indeed older than her years, for there are some women who in mind and body are more rapidly developed than others. Denzil was only somewhat past twenty, and his love for her was fresh as the flowers that were springing up around them. It had been wasted on none yet, and Rose was the first who seemed to fill up all the soft illusions of the mind, as being the only one he could love, and the touch of whose hand or arm would send a thrill of ecstasy to his heart. Could hers really be so elastic? he now asked of himself; did one passion really efface another in her breast, even as the waves efface the footmarks on the sandy shore? Could she love more than one, and perhaps more than one at a time? She sat on a garden seat with her handsome white hands folded before her. A jet cross which had escaped the pillagers was on her snow-white neck, when it rose and fell with the undulations of her breathing. Her long lashes and delicate lids were drooped over the clear brown eyes, that could be so waggish, droll or cold and calm, as fun, or passion, or prudence, swayed her. The whole pose, her aspect, the contour of her head, the exquisite turn of the white and stately throat, so like that of Mabel, were not lost on Denzil as he gazed, and in gazing, worshipped her. "A penny for your thoughts, friend Denzil," said she, looking up with a laughing face and breaking a silence of some minutes' duration. "They are priceless, Rose, because they are of you." "Well, like Paul, you may be most tender and full of truth--the latter a rare virtue in men; but I can never play the part of Virginia." "Why?" "Because I am too giddy, perhaps," replied Rose; yet with all her coquetry she was not without an emotion of genuine pride at the conviction of having inspired so handsome and earnest a young man with an attachment so devoted and pure. But what was to be the sequel to all this? As Artemus Ward says, "one is always inclined to give aid and comfort to the enemy, if he cums in the shape of a nice young gal;" and doubtless the old Khan of the Kuzzilbashes seemed to think so too; for to Rose he was unusually kind, and somewhat unwisely was wont at times to praise her to his wife. Once he said, "The girl is beautiful as a bird of paradise."