"For your sake, I will make some exceptions," with a "killing" look. "But what do you imagine to be the object of that flirtation? No young lady of prudence or proper self-respect, would encourage so boldly the attentions of a stranger. Supposing him to be what he represents, (a thing by no means certain,) she cannot intend to marry him—a man old enough to be her father!"
"But, 'unison of tastes,' 'concord of souls,' etc., will go far towards reconciling her to the disparity of years," observed Josephine, ironically; not sorry to strike upon this tender point. He tried to laugh, but with indifferent success.
Ida's voice reached them, and they stopped to listen.
"I am afraid my conceptions of Eastern life and scenery are more poetical than correct. I picture landscapes sleeping in warm, rich, 'Syrian sunshine,' 'sandal groves and bowers of spice,'
'Ruined shrines, and towers that seem
The relics of some splendid dream,'—
such a Fairy Land as ignorance and imagination create."
"The Utopia of one who studies Lalla Rookh more than 'Eastern Statistics,' or 'Incidents of Travel,'" said Mr. Dermott, smiling. "Yet Moore's descriptions are not so much overwrought as some suppose. His words came continually to my tongue. He has imbibed the true spirit of Oriental poetry; the melancholy, which, like the ghost of a dead age, broods over that oldest of lands; the passion flushing under their tropical sun; their wealth of imagery. Lalla Rookh reads like a translation from the original Persian. The wonder is that he has never been self-tempted to visit the 'Vale of Cashmere' in person."
"Campbell, too, having immortalized Wyoming, will not cross the ocean to behold it," said Ida.
There was a consultation between the confederates, and Pemberton crossed to Ida's chair, with a smirk that belied the fire in his eye.
"Excuse me, Mr. Dermott,—Miss Ida, I am commissioned to inquire of you the authorship and meaning of this quotation—