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Rh —seek her power; but such power was hers in its widest magnitude of empire; and she was a little weary of it, as sovereigns are weary of their crowns.

"You give fresh air the preference,—will you come into my gardens? They are very wild, but I like them the better for that," she asked him, as she rose with that half-languid grace which bespoke something of oriental blood in her, and moved out on to the terrace.

The gardens were, in truth, untrimmed as the neglect of years could make them« but they had been originally palace grounds, and all the colour and luxuriance of unchecked vegetation made them beautiful, with their wilderness of myrtle, cactus, and pomegranate, and their stretches of untrained roses blooming round the splashing waters of the marble and porphyry fountains.

"Little has been done here, for years, and yet there is a loveliness in them not to be had in trimmed and trained château gardens," she said, as she turned so that the sun fell full on her face with its delicate haughty lustre, its richness and fairness of hue.

"Yes! there is a loveliness," he answered her, as his eyes looked down into hers, "greater than I ever believed in before."