you see my companions you may find good reason to think that I am the
least fit of all to take the first place. Nor," she added, drawing me
from the room, "do I wish it. If only you will keep in your mind one
little place for the memory of our visit to your vessel and your
promise respecting it, I shall be more than content."

Eveena's humble, unconscious self-abnegation was rendering the
conversation intolerably painful, and even the embarrassing situation
now at hand was a welcome interruption. Eveena paused before a door
opening from the gallery into one of the rooms looking on the
peristyle.

"You will find them there," she said, drawing back.

"Come with me, then," I answered; and as she shrank away, I tightened
my clasp of her waist and drew her forward. The door opened, and we
found ourselves in presence of six veiled ladies in pink and silver,
all of them, with one exception, a little taller and less slight than
my bride. Eveena, with the kindness which never failed under the most
painful trial or the most powerful impulses of natural feeling,
extricated herself gently from my hold, took the hand of the first,
and brought her up to me. The girl was evidently startled at the first
sight of her new possessor, and alarmed by a figure so much larger and
more powerful than any she had ever seen, exceeding probably the
picture drawn by her imagination.

"This," said Eveena gently and gravely, "is Eunane, the prettiest and
most accomplished scholar in her Nursery."

As I was about to acknowledge the introduction with the same cold
politeness with which I should have bowed to a strange guest on Earth,
Eveena took my left hand in her own and laid it on the maiden's veil,
recalling to me at once the proprieties of the occasion and the
justice she had claimed for her unoffending and unintentional rivals;
but at the same time bringing back in full force a remembrance she
could not have forgotten, but whose effect upon myself the ideas to
which she was habituated rendered her unable to anticipate. To accept
in her presence a second bride, by the same ceremonial act which had
so lately asserted my claim to herself, was intensely repugnant to my
feelings, and only her own self-sacrificing influence could have
overcome my reluctance. My hesitation was, I fear, perceptible to
Eunane; for, as I removed her veil and head-dress, her expression and
a colour somewhat brighter than that of mere maiden shyness indicated
disappoin