“On the following day I had the satisfaction to hear my young companions propose to go on a fishing party, an amusement in which, by the rules of my caste, I was not allowed to partake.  They had scarcely left the house before I flew to the garden with a book in my hand, and passing as before to the shrubbery, I buried myself in a close thicket at one end of it.  I remained there from the morning till late in the afternoon, without refreshment of any kind; and such was the intensity of my emotion, that I did not feel the want of it.  At length, a little before sunset, I saw Veenah and her three cousins enter the garden.  I soon contrived to show myself, with my book in my hand.  I approached, bowed to them all, but to Veenah last; and although my cousins showed surprise at seeing me in their garden, at this time, they did not seem displeased.  I felt very desirous, I could not tell why, to conceal my feelings from every person except her who was the object of them.  I forced a conversation with my two eldest cousins, who were modest pleasing girls, and then with an embarrassed air addressed a few words to Veenah and her companion, the youngest of my cousins.  Occasionally I would stray off from them as if I was about to leave them, and then suddenly return.  In one of these movements, I perceived that Veenah and her associate had separated from the others, and strolled to a distant part of the garden.  I soon joined them as if it were by accident, entered into conversation with them alternately, and of course only one half of that which I either heard or said proceeded from the heart or found its way thither.  I know not if Veenah expected to see me, but she was dressed with unusual care.  We had not been conversing many minutes before the eldest sister beckoning to them, they bid me good night and returned to the house.

“To the same sort of management I had recourse every day, and seldom failed to see and converse with Veenah, sometimes in company with all her cousins, but oftener with Fatima, the youngest.  By dividing my attentions among them all, I succeeded for a while in concealing from them the object of my preference; but the sex are too sharp-sighted to be long deceived in these matters.  As soon as I perceived that my secret was discovered, I endeavoured to make a friend of Fatima, in which I was successful.  After this our meetings were more frequent, and what was of greater importance, they were uninterrupted.  Fatima, who was one of the most generous and amiable girls in the world, would often take Veenah out to walk, when her sisters were otherwise engaged; at which times she was perpetually contriving, under some little pretext, to leave us alone.  We were not long in understanding each other; and when I urged our early marriage, she ingenuously replied, that I had her consent whenever I had her father’s, and that she hoped I could obtain that; but added, (and she trembled while she spoke) she did not know his views respecting her.  In the first raptures of