It would not have been polite in the Sultan to chicane the favorite, and ask her what she understood by love: wherefore he avoided it. Mirzoza took his silence for consent, and proceeded, proud of having extricated herself from a difficulty, which to her appeared considerable. “Ye men believe, because we do not argue in form, that we do not reason. Know once for all, that we could as easily discover the falsity of your paradoxes, as ye that of our reasonings, if we would give ourselves the trouble. If your highness was less in a hurry to satisfy your curiosity on the subject of lapdogs, I would in my turn give you a scrap of my philosophy. But it shall not be lost: I will reserve it for one of those days, that you will have more time to bestow on me.”

Mangogul assured her that he had no better business, than to profit of her philosophical notions; that the metaphysics of a Sultana of twenty two, ought not to be less singular than the morals of a Sultan of his age.

But Mirzoza apprehending that this was pure complaisance in Mangogul, begg’d some time to prepare, and thus gave the Sultan a pretext for flying whither his impatience might call him.