THE GUEBRE PRIEST. 
247 
stranger was utterly unconscious that he was abiding 
with common plunderers, and they did not think there 
could be the slightest necessity for making him wiser 
upon so delicate a point. 
The new guest seemed entirely to have forgotten 
his original intention of offering his services to the 
Mahrattas, but continued, day after day and week 
after week, to occupy the recess in the tomb. The 
Parsee now began to absent himself, as formerly, upon 
plundering excursions, and thus the Englishman had 
occasional opportunities of seeing and conversing with 
the daughter. At first she manifested a suppressed 
repugnance to meet him ; but by degrees this abated, 
and she finally met him without embarrassment. The 
woman who had been her only female companion 
since her parent’s banishment from the home of his 
fathers was not a person whom she could either con- 
fide in or respect ; it was therefore a relief to her 
sometimes to converse with one who seemed to enter- 
tain a silent sympathy with her solitary state, and to 
whom her society was evidently more than a common 
gratification. 
The consciousness of being appreciated was a feeling 
to which she had been hitherto unaccustomed ; and in 
proportion as it was new and enjoyed, so did its no- 
velty and freshness diffuse a charm over her naturally 
buoyant but now subdued spirit, of which she anxious- 
ly encouraged the endurance. It opened a new world 
to her unsophisticated view ; or, if it did not open a 
new world, it at least suggested new trains and ob- 
jects of speculation which to her were delightful, 
because they raised her spirit from the depression of 
