XXI.

I had for some time observed in my host's highly informed and powerfully
proportioned daughter that kindly and protective sentiment which,
whether above the earth or below it, an all-wise Providence has bestowed
upon the feminine division of the human race. But until very lately I
had ascribed it to that affection for 'pets' which a human female at
every age shares with a human child. I now became painfully aware that
the feeling with which Zee deigned to regard me was different from that
which I had inspired in Taee. But this conviction gave me none of that
complacent gratification which the vanity of man ordinarily conceives
from a flattering appreciation of his personal merits on the part of
the fair sex; on the contrary, it inspired me with fear. Yet of all
the Gy-ei in the community, if Zee were perhaps the wisest and the
strongest, she was, by common repute, the gentlest, and she was
certainly the most popularly beloved. The desire to aid, to succour, to
protect, to comfort, to bless, seemed to pervade her whole being. Though
the complicated miseries that originate in penury and guilt are unknown
to the social system of the Vril-ya, still, no sage had yet discovered
in vril an agency which could banish sorrow from life; and wherever
amongst her people sorrow found its way, there Zee followed in the
mission of comforter. Did some sister Gy fail to secure the love she
sighed for? Zee sought her out, and brought all the resources of her
lore, and all the consolations of her sympathy, to bear upon a grief
that so needs the solace of a confidant. In the rare cases, when grave
illness seized upon childhood or youth, and the cases, less rare,
when, in the hardy and adventurous probation of infants, some accident,
attended with pain and injury occurred, Zee forsook her studies and
her sports, and became the healer and nurse. Her favourite flights
were towards the extreme boundaries of the domain where children were
stationed on guard against outbreaks of warring forces in nature, or the
invasions of devouring animals, so that she might warn them of any peril
which her knowledge detected or foresaw, or be at hand if any harm had
befallen. Nay, even in the exercise of her scientific acquirements there
was a concurrent benevolence of purpose and will. Did she learn any
novelty in invention that would be useful to the practitioner of some
special art or craft? she hastened to communicate and explain it. Was
some vete