which amongst many cushions was a woman; overhead was a canopy of fringed cloth supported by delicately chased silver poles inlaid with turquoises. On a table of mother-of-pearl stood some cheroots and a glass globe of water. Several attendants, gorgeously attired, lounged near, and created a breeze with fans made of real roses.

The lady herself was very handsome, with a clear skin of an almost olive colour, great eyes of a velvety darkness, and a soft, slow, sweet smile; pearls clasped her throat, diamonds shone on her fingers, while gold bracelets glittered on her slender bare ankles. She motioned her somewhat bewildered visitor to seat himself near, and signed to the attendants to withdraw.

He felt terribly nervous in the presence of this royal lady: she watched him in silence for a few moments, fanning herself languidly the while; she was uncertain as to how to open the conversation. He was very handsome, certainly, she thought, as she looked, and with a figure as lithe and graceful as that of a panther.

She raised herself a little and leant forward slightly; he started and looked at her apprehensively.

"I suppose," she began, "that you are wondering why I sent for you?"

The tones of her voice were strangely liquid and clear.

The young man murmured something indistinctly in response.

She continued, "But for some time past, when the King and myself have gone abroad, we have seen you often and have desired to know you."

The listener was trembling so with joy, relief, and surprise at hearing such words, that he could find naught to say in reply.

Then she, perceiving his agitation, spoke to him gently and kindly for a few minutes, in order to give him time to recover his self-possession. Then, when he was more composed, she asked him many questions about himself—questions which he gladly answered. Then after a while she bade him go and to return on the morrow.

So he went from the seductive presence of the Princess with his head in a whirl, and feeling as if he dwelt no longer on earth but in Nirvana.

On the morrow he returned, and for many days following, not a question was ever asked. He was ushered always into the same room, where he was greeted most graciously.

On the occasion of his fourth visit, after the Princess had conversed with him on many subjects, she asked him somewhat suddenly if he was betrothed or married.

And when he answered that he was not it seemed to him that she appeared pleased. Then a long silence fell between them, which he of course did not attempt to break.

"My friend," she said at last, and her manner was somewhat nervous and embarrassed, "I am glad that your affections are not placed elsewhere, because I myself, strange as it is for a woman to tell a man, desire to wed with you. To my father's Court have come many who have sought my hand in marriage, but in none have I seen those qualities which I admire and esteem——" she paused.

The low, thrilling words stole on the listener's ear in sweet, subdued cadence. Did he hear aright? He doubted it; he feared that he only dreamt.

Then he looked at her where she sat, with her shimmering jewels glancing a thousand hues, and his heart throbbed and his brain reeled, and he was as if drunk with wine.

He knew not how to answer this beautiful, gracious lady.

How she must love him, he thought, when she could so stoop from her high estate. He dropped on his knees before her. "Ah," he murmured, "where could I find fitting expressions in which to tell you what I feel? Your words have lifted me to complete Nirvana, I shall never dwell on earth again. Speech is but a poor thing often, therefore I will not say much. Deeds are best; it is by them, O Princess, that you shall read my heart."

She smiled, and her eyes were softly tender as they met his.

"There is but one thing," she said, after a few moments; "my father must not be told till after we are married; he would not sanction our union, though he will forgive us afterwards. Therefore you must take me hence, away from out the kingdom for some time; then, when my father's just anger shall have faded, as it surely will, we will return together."

The young man listened in rapt attention, scarcely crediting even yet his own great fortune.

"And yet I scarcely see," gravely pursued the Princess, after a short silence, "how it can be managed."

She rose as she spoke and advanced to where a box of ivory, inlaid with opals, stood, touched a spring and opened it.

"See," she cried, "this is all the money I own," taking in her hands a few small worthless pieces of silver; "I have never required money till now, all that I have ever wanted has been always beside me."

"Do not fear if it is only money that you need," answered the young man; "for of that I have more than enough."

"Ah! is that so?" she exclaimed eagerly, turning to him a face of glad surprise.

"At home," he continued, "I have much of jewels and gold which I got but a little while back; sufficient to keep us in that luxury which is due to your rank, for many a year to come."

"Go and fetch it," urged the Princess, "and return here at nightfall, and I will go with thee to another life—a life of happiness such as this world seldom holds."

Her great eyes glittered as she spoke.

He read in her words, her looks, and her gestures only the fond impatience of a love long, secret, and denied.

He prostrated himself, and saying, "I will return at nightfall," left her to hurry on his errand.

In the early evening, when the darkness had only just fallen, he drove in a carriage to the palace; he left it at a little distance from the great gold entrance, and taking on his person much of his stolen treasure, he was ushered into the Princess's room; the swinging lamps were lit and shed a faint radiance on all around.

She was by herself, and greeted him in a manner that left nothing to be desired.

Wishing to assure her of the existence of that money and those jewels that he had spoken of, and feeling nervously elated, he drew from the recesses of his turban and sash a handful of great stones, that were as rivers of light; she gave a woman's delighted cry as she took them in her hands.

He smiled, well pleased, and tendered a great ruby of wondrous size and blood-red fire.

"These are but a few of what I have," he said.

"How rich you must be!" she exclaimed, "From whence did all these things come?"

"Ah, Princess, what matter whence they came? Sufficient it is that now they are yours."

As he spoke she, unseen by him, touched a gong of curious workmanship that stood near.

Then she held the stones up to the light, praising their beauty and worth, and asking many questions.

A short while passed and then a great door at the end of the room opened and the King entered, followed by the four fakirs, and advanced to where his daughter sat.

The young man's heart beat in alarm at the sight of those whom he had robbed. And the Princess's first words did not tend to decrease the feeling.

"Are these some of the treasures that you have lost?" she asked, handing to the elder of the four the biggest of the diamonds and the rubies. He took them in his hand, then passed them to the others, saying, at the same time—

"These are ours."

"There stands the thief, then," said the Princess, pointing to the now cowering shaking figure of the culprit, who looked piteously from one to the other, feeling at the same time very enraged with himself for having been so easily caught in the trap that had been laid for him. "It is for you," continued the Princess, addressing herself to the four, "when your entire treasure has been restored to you, to name his punishment."

The elder of them answered—

"We are so rejoiced to regain that which we had feared was lost for ever, Princess, that we are willing that he should go forth unchastised; his conscience, and what it will say to him, will be his punishment."

"That would be too light a sentence; for I doubt much if he has any conscience," said the lady, as she seated herself.

"Then, Princess, will you relieve us by sentencing him yourself, as you best will?" craved the four.

"No," she answered, "that I cannot do, I might be too harsh—I have convicted him; let His Majesty, who is ever lenient, name his punishment."

Then they all turned to the King, who said—

"I command that he be banished from this land for ever, and any property that he has, or is likely to have, be confiscated."

THE QUEEN'S MONASTERY.

THE VIGIL OF MAH MAY.

MAH MAY was a little Burmese girl who kept a small stall filled with cheroots in one of the crowded many-coloured streets of Rangoon. There she sat all through the sultry, languorous days smoking and waiting, with philosophical calm, for customers; now and then a great, big, well-fed looking Indian would stop and handle her goods, and, grumbling perhaps a little, would eventually buy; or a lean Chinaman, in baggy blue trousers, would pause and smile and talk awhile; or some little naked child would come and beg one for nothing; or the black coolies, their silver belts glittering in the sunlight, would cluster round and bargain and quarrel among themselves, perhaps, in the end, throwing her goods back to her with no very complimentary language; or a "Chetty,"[1] airily attired in scanty white muslin, his shaved head protected by a big cotton umbrella, would come and haggle over the annas as a poor Burman would never dream of doing; then, again, a well-to-do woman of her own race, dressed in silk, and with gold bracelets on her wrists, would purchase, but they were always, as Mah May used to say with a shake of her small head, the meanest of all.

She was a bright little girl, though very poor; often hungry, and always wretchedly clad.

For two years past she had squatted behind her tray, in the hot, hard, cruel glare, when the sun beat on the flat-roofed white houses mercilessly; when even the river, with its forests of ships, seemed to cease to flow; when all things were gasping and weary and the gharry wallahs slept soundly, and the poor lean ponies tried to flick the flies off their backs with their tails; when the Indian shopkeepers stretched themselves on wooden beds just in the shadow of their door-ways and snored away, dreaming of rupees and curry; while only the pariah dogs scratched and smelt in the road for something to eat. No one stirred; the drowsy influence of the heat seemed universal. Or on the dull wet days, when the sky was clouded and rain poured down, soaking everything through and through, and the thin coloured dresses clung pitifully round their owners' dark forms, and nobody had time to think of buying as they passed on in the warm, damp, oppressive atmosphere. Still Mah May sat, no matter what the season, rolling her cheroots, cutting betel chews, and crooning some little song to herself. At mid-day she ate some rice, and got a draught of water from a pump not far distant. Often some one was kind, and gave her some fruit or a cake; oftener they were unkind, but oftener still they were indifferent.

It was a hard life—very, and she was only seventeen. Yet was she content. Nature had been her nurse. The sun and the rain had made her what she was—a hardy, honest, upright little soul, envying and hating no one.

When the shadows grew long and the green shutters of the shops closed, Mah May rolled up her wares and wended her way homewards through the noisy, many-hued crowds to a miserable wooden hut, which stood in dirty yellow water, spanned by a rotten plank, and was situated in one of the poorest and most squalid quarters of the town—a quarter in which poverty, in its most hideous form, stalked. Half-clothed men, women and children of all ages, dwelt together there, and kept life in them as best they could.

In the huts there was scarce one piece of furniture, save perhaps a bed or a roll of matting or a ragged purdah.

The scorpions, the white ants, and the great toads held high revel. Amidst rows, hard words, evil things, cries of little children, and growls of half-starved dogs Mah May dwelt, and was happy.

She did not know of any better life than hers. The day passed in the fresh air under the changeless azure of the skies and the night curled up in a corner of the hut, with the purple stars looking down through some chink in the roof; and knowing of any other, it is doubtful if she would have cared to exchange.

Mah Khine, a black-browed woman whom Mah May had lived with as long as she could remember, was very good and kind to her in her own way; but she had many children tugging at her skirt, and her life was a very hard one. She was married to an Indian who had nearly all the faults of his by no means faultless race; his past had been bad, his present was even more so.

He counted the cost of anything, done or undone, as small if it only brought in pice; pice sufficient to procure "toddy,"[2] the hot, horrible, poisonous stuff kept in the little shop by a Chinaman in one of the narrow, tortuous bye-lanes of the native quarter. To him it mattered nothing that his children had oftentimes not enough to eat, and that the lines about his wife's patient mouth deepened.

The passion for drink possessed him, to the exclusion of all other feelings.

Stretched on a wooden settle in the crowded, dirty shop that abutted on the still dirtier street, reeking with filth and smells, he passed his time sunk in a semi-conscious stupor.

The proprietor looked upon Moulla Khan as one of the best customers he had.

For him was his smile the sweetest, to him was he most accommodating in the matter of money.

Of a day the frequenters of the place were comparatively few, but when the night crept on, Pun Lun lit up his place with many sickly oil lamps, whose light showed up the gaudy signboard with its ill-written "Toddy Shop" on it, surrounded by a curious design in Chinese, and drew the human moths round in dozens to smoke, drink, play, and talk. Indian, Burmese, all countries were represented there in that crowded, noisy,