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"I wish to Heaven she was," observed the pacha, impatiently.

"May it please your sublime highness, she soon will be."

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At an early hour the proclamation was made, that the princess was about
to take unto herself a husband from the high caste youths of Souffra,
and that all whom it might concern should repair to the palace, to be
present at the ceremony. As it concerned all Souffra--all Souffra was
there. The sun had nearly reached to the zenith, and looked down almost
enviously upon the gay scene beneath, broiling the brains of the good
people of Souffra, whose heads paved, as it were, the country for ten
square miles, when the beauteous Princess Babe-bi-bobu made her
appearance in the hall of audience, attended by her maidens and the
grandees of Souffra, who were the executors to her father's will. At
the head of them was the chief brahmin, who looked anxiously among the
crowd for his son Mezrimbi, who had not made his appearance that
morning. At last he espied his rich dress, his mantle, his turban and
jewelled scymitar, but his face was muffled up in a shawl, and the chief
brahmin smiled at the witty conceit of his son, that of having his own
beauteous person unmuffled as well as that of the now _scarred_ Acota.
And then silence was commanded by a thousand brazen trumpets, and
enforced by the discharge of two thousand pieces of artillery, ten
square miles of people repeated the order for silence, in loud and
reiterated shouts--and at last silence obeyed the order, and there was
silence. The chief brahmin rose, and having delivered an extemporaneous
prayer, suitable to the solemnity and importance of the occasion, he
proceeded to read the will of the late king--he then descanted upon the
Molean controversy, and how it was now an article of the Souffrarian
faith, which it was heresy and impalement not to believe, that "moles
were not scars, and only blemishes when they were considered so to be."
The choice of the princess, continued the learned brahmin, has however,
not been made; she has left to chance that which was to have proceeded
from her own free will, and that without consulting with the ministers
of our holy religion. My heart told me yesterday that such was not
right, and contrary not only to the king's will, but the will of Heaven;
and I communed deeply on the subject after I had prayed ni