in rural unsophistication—Elizabeth Temple had cured him of any such vain fancies: he retained a predilection for the natural—only he decided that it was not to be discovered in any civilised country. He used to sit on the sea-shore, and spend the evening poring over some volumes of Lord Byron he had found by accident, and in throwing pebbles into the sea. A beautiful dream of a Circassian had been floating on his mind, when the arrival of the Dey of Algiers with his harem at Naples changed his reverie to absolute reality.
One fine morning, a whole array of palanquins, the forms within them shrouded from human eye, passed him on his ride—the next day the same—the third the curtains of one slightly moved, a sprig of jasmine was thrown out, and the day following one of myrtle. That night Cecil read Lord Byron—the Giaour and the Corsair were only interrupted by Lalla Rookh. He went to bed, and dreamt of the maids
"Who blushed behind the gallery's silken shades."
The next day he began to study Arabic, and to endeavour to find some means of conversing with this unknown Houri. To be sure, there were curtains, locks, bolts, bars, and cimeters; still,
"Love will find its way
Through paths where wolves would fear to prey;
And if it dares enough, 'twere hard
If passion met not some reward:"
