reverence of HAMET for the memory of his father would not suffer him to
marry till the year should be completed; he determined not to mention
ALMEIDA to his brother, till the time when he could marry her was near.
The fierce and haughty deportment of ALMORAN had now left HAMET no room
to doubt of his character: and though he had no apprehension that he
would make any attempts upon ALMEIDA, after she should be his wife; yet
he did not know how much might justly be feared from his passion, if he
should see her and become enamoured of her, while she was yet a virgin
in the house of her father.

ALMEIDA had not only unsullied purity of mind, but principles of refined
and exalted virtue; and as the life of HAMET was an example of all that
was either great or good, Abdallah felt no anxiety upon leaving them
together, except what arose from his fears, that his daughter would not
be able to secure the conquest she had made.

As it was impossible for HAMET to have such an acquaintance with ALMEIDA
as he desired, till he could enter into conversation with her upon terms
of equality; it was his first care to sooth her into confidence and
familiarity, and by degrees he succeeded: he soon found, in the free
intercourse of mind with mind, which he established instead of the
implicit submission which only ecchoed his own voice, how little of the
pleasure that women were formed to give can be enjoyed, when they are
considered merely as slaves to a tyrant's will, the passive subjects of
transient dalliance and casual enjoyment. The pleasure which he took in
the youthful beauty of ALMEIDA, was now endeared, exalted, and refined,
by the tender sensibility of her heart, and by the reflexion of his own
felicity from her eyes: when he admired the gracefulness of her motion,
the elegance of her figure, the symmetry of her features, and the bloom
of her complexion, he considered them as the decorations only of a