grain of the heart," and could no longer be mistaken. The words of the little Greek boy, which had given him so much offence, though spoken some years ago, were now frequently recalled. The opprobrious epithet of Kafir not unfrequently bestowed, and the strange innuendoes of the mother of Yussuf in moments of anger, were treasured in his bosom. Instead of being treated with the indifference he formerly manifested, they were now the all-absorbing subjects of his meditations, and were tortured into proofs of the invalidity of Suleiman's claims to his affections as his child. The father of the Greek boy, he imagined, must be acquainted with the secret, and he only awaited his return from the fleet the ensuing winter, "to pluck out the heart of his mystery" from the breast of the rayah, even if it were necessary with the sword.

CHAPTER XV.

When she comes forth, she eclipses the sun in splendour; she moves with the suppleness of the slender javelin.

EBN EL WARDI.

IN the harems of the middle classes of so ciety, the unmarried sons have commonly access to the apartments of the women, so long as they remain under the paternal roof. They very often take their meals with them, as the dignity of the lord of the harem admits not of his eating with his wives or children; neither have they the privilege of being seated in his presence. Mourad had therefore the entrée of the harem, and every time he visited it, he left its sacred precincts with another unerring shaft in his bosom, shot from the deadly level of a soft black eye. Zuleika was the daughter of

Suleiman, by a Circassian slave, who, having been publicly manumitted before the Cadi, took her station among the free wives of the harem, and had the gratification of seeing her child possessed of all the privileges of a legal offspring. Zuleika was two years younger than Mourad; they were brought up together, and they quarrelled less than step-children commonly do; not that there was any great mutuality of minds manifested in the nursery, but as they grew up, there was some community of feeling perhaps produced by the circumstance of both children being equally obnoxious to the sovereign lady of the harem, the mother of Yussuf. She looked upon them as intruders, who had been smuggled into the favour of the Aga, expressly, as she believed, to interfere with the prospects of her son. Mourad and his little playmate had a common interest in defeating, as far as possible, the malevolence of the Queen-mother, by making Master Yussuf accountable for his own mischief, which he generally endeavoured to throw on the shoulders of his young companions. This was the first link of their union, and it would be needless to

trace every other which connected the chain of their affections till they arrived at a mature age, and the first fond hopes of their young hearts were bound together. Zuleika was now in her sixteenth year; in the language of the East, beautiful as the moon, and, like that pale planet, living on the light of her brother's countenance. The gorgeous and magnificent character of Circassian loveliness was displayed in her symmetrical form and splendid features. Her beautifully rounded limbs, the fulness of her languid eye, and the ripeness of her rosy lips, forming a contrast with the colour of her complexion, were the characteristic charms of a blooming Oriental girl, such as Titian might have painted, and Moore immortalized in verse. Her long hair fell in voluptuous profusion on her shoulders, from the silver gauze which went round the head, interwoven with her ringlets; while her flowing garments of spangled Damascene betrayed the talent of the artiste, who fashioned the vesture to the shape, which never suffered the constraint of a corsette; for such an implement of torture is unknown in Turkey. The pretty yellow slippered foot, and well

turned ankle, in the hosiery of Nature, stole in and out like mice beneath the ample folds of those lower garments, which we seldom see exhibited in this country, except by ladies on the stage, and then in a very scanty form. Her majestic gait was common to all her countrywomen, on whom the toilet imposes no constraint, and whose movements are consequently easy and elegant, because they are natural, and very different from the constrained and artificial carriage of our European belles, the business of whose French posture-masters is to outrage Nature in every attitude and movement. The Turkish female costume is advantageous to a fine figure, and yet is so calculated to make the most of an indifferent one, that probably Zuleika would have done little honour to the skill of Madame le Roi in Paris, or even to the divine devices of Mrs. Bell, in St. James's Place. But although she might have been eclipsed in a ball-room by the blushing beauties of Franguestan, Zuleika was a lovely creature to see moving, like a little empress in the harem, or seated on a divan, in all the elegant indolence of a Turkish lady, "her