Page:The Mysterious Warning - Parsons (1796, volume 3).djvu/166

 "Yes," said Heli; "but those virgins will be always beautiful, always young, and never unfaithful."

"Then," returned the other, "you may well bear with their follies and decay here, since their comparative defects must enhance the delights of your promised happiness hereafter."

"Fine talking," cried Heli; "if you had two or three hundred women to rule, who, shut up together, are perpetually quarrelling, envious, jealous, and revengeful; all of whom you must reconcile, please, and caress. I believe you would scarcely think expected pleasures a sufficient recompense to make you patiently endure such a slavery. Thank Heaven, I have but eight, and trouble enough they give me."

Ferdinand smiled.—"And is not the trouble of your own making. Why increase your plagues; why have eight women?—Can you not select one from the number to make you happy, and dismiss the others?"