"Yes; but not for long at a time. However, the long rest you have taken is no reproach to you, for it was my doing. I saw that it was needful to restore your strength and good spirits. You are the better for it; the princess, the lady Zonella, and others have also had long rests and are the better for it, as I have already told Leonard. The king Dranoa, too, is better--in a sense; for he has now no mental trouble, and with his sickness there is no physical pain nor suffering nor distress of any kind. But he is very wishful now that the marriage of his daughter should take place as soon as possible; for only then, he feels, will he be able to die happily. In deference to his earnest wish I have settled for it to be solemnised at the end of a fortnight; and, in view of the fact that the state of his health cannot but be a source of sadness to his people, I have deemed it better to order that it shall be a quiet ceremonial, and not a great _fête_, as had been planned. This will not offend your feelings, my son?" Leonard looked up with a bright smile. "After what you have told me," he said, "I feel, with gladness and gratitude that it is not without reason that you have so often thus addressed me--as your son. _Now_, I may indeed claim you as a father." "You may indeed," Monella assented; "I take the place of my lost friend." "Then you have no need to ask whether what you think best pleases _me_. If you will be my father, choose for me and instruct me; for I feel I have need of your help to enable me to take up, and bear worthily, the position I owe to you. I felt this," continued Leonard, with great earnestness--"I felt this very strongly when I lay in that foul den that the poor demented wretch called 'the devil-tree's larder.' I made then a vow that, if it should please God to deliver me from the peril that threatened me, I would thenceforth devote my life to the good of the people I had come amongst. I repented sorely that I had given my thoughts too much to selfish--albeit innocent--enjoyment; and I vowed I would not be guilty of that selfishness in the future, if the chance and the choice were offered to me. And now that they _are_, help me--instruct me, my father, I pray you, in all that may enable me to fulfil that vow." Monella gazed long and fixedly at the young man; and in his eyes there was a glistening as of a tear. Then he rose and went to the window that looked out over the lake, and stood awhile, with a far-off vacant look that told his thoughts were wandering to distant scenes or persons. It was some time before he looked round.