THE GUEBRE PRIEST. 
249 
in which her quick perceptions were shrouded,, that 
the incidental deformity was completely merged in the 
positive intellectual beauty. Amid the deep absorp- 
tion of his thoughts,, the question would frequently 
rise to his lips, though they did not utter it — if she 
is so pure as a heathen, what would she be as a 
Christian ? Time ripened the attachment, which was 
only not perceived by the father because he was so 
much from home. The stranger declared his affection 
to the lovely Parsee girl, and with all the artlessness 
of her free and sanguine nature she confessed how 
deeply it was returned. She now, for the first time, 
disclosed to him the occupation of her parent, which, 
though he had been so long under the same roof with 
the Guebre, but apart from his family, he had not yet 
perceived, attributing all he saw to the peculiarity of 
Oriental habits. He was a good deal disquieted at 
the disclosure ; and the beautiful girl, who in the quick 
scrutiny of her love perceived his emotion, did not 
hesitate to express her abhorrence of a mode of life 
which had long been to her a source of intense 
misery. 
The Englishman looked upon her with that sort of 
thrilling commiseration which invariably draws the 
heart closer to the object ; and in the romantic ardour 
of his passion, its fervent sophistry rising to his mind 
as the sober dictate of truth, he persuaded himself 
that he was influenced by a holy impulse to snatch 
her from the moral contagion to which she was per- 
petually exposed, and place her in a more elevated 
position among her species, where she might have the 
full opportunity of embracing that good which was 
