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Never a bride so fair; never a couple so happy. It was that

quiet, subtle happiness, which permeates the very atmosphere

about them and leaves its traces in every susceptible heart that

breathes it.

CHAPTER XI.

THE RETIREMENT.

After the wedding the Prince and Princess were, from necessity,

drawn within the whirl of social pleasures with attentions in the

way of entertainments, court suppers, balls, drawing-room

receptions, etc. The interior longings were compelled to creep

into the background until the external was gratified to

exhaustion. The Princess' seriousness departed for a time and

they were very happy in the round of pleasures that were planned

for them. But as time sped on they began to grow weary of the

show, pomp and shallowness of external life. The seeds that had

been sown in Rathunor's heart and brain, and that which he had

aroused in Nu-nah's slumbering, spiritual organs of her brain,

had taken root and now began to spring forth into activity, first

as weariness of the superficial pleasures of society, then a

desire to gradually withdraw from this life into a more quiet and

secluded one, where they might listen to the inner voices and

gain pleasure, as well as knowledge, from this source.