The sleeping prince felt her presence, and through his mind there passed a vision of loveliness; he dreamed that a beautiful woman bent above his couch holding a pomegranate blossom—the flower of faith. Upon her dark hair there rested a little cap sewn thick with beaded pearls, and something whispered in his dream that this was the princess who had scorned a Tartar king for his sake. And still the prince dreamed on, and still the bright face bent above him, all unheeding the frantic gestures of the attendant who would call the imprudent Nahīd away. But the bulbul in the rose-tree had bolder grown, and his voice rose higher in a joyous song,—the sleeping prince awoke, and lo! the vision of his dream was bending o’er him; with one quick movement, all unheeding Eastern law, he caught her in his arms, and, as she lay blushing and trembling there, he told her the sweet old story, which is ever new to the listening heart. In vain the attendant pleaded that he had no right to even look upon her unveiled face—in vain she warned them that if this meeting came to the ears of the king, the life of Meher must pay the penalty of the forbidden kiss; long he held her there in his warm embrace, and then a Huma bird floated slowly above them and the attendant thought that a future king and his queen were before her; for never doth this bird of happy omen fly around a human head but it will sometime wear a crown. The sun had rolled away behind the crimson curtains of the west before the princess stole to her room, but not to sleep, for if a treacherous eye had seen her with Meher, she might be called with the dawn to witness his execution. AFTERWARDS. The prince went to his chambers with his heart filled with conflicting emotions; on the one hand was the beautiful princess, who had confided her love to him, and on the other was the humiliating knowledge that he had betrayed the trust of his royal friend, the king, who had taken an unknown youth into his heart and home. Full well he knew that he had no right to even look into the unveiled face of the princess, no right to touch the soft hands which were henna stained upon the palms, and yet he had violated the most sacred law of hospitality by holding her in his arms—nay, he had even pressed her crimson lips with his own; in that hour of strong self-condemnation he did not dread the righteous anger of the king, he felt rather, that it devolved upon him to go into the court, and make a full confession of his base act and bravely receive the deserved punishment.