after this," said Achmet, "there is no talisman on earth strong enough to bind her heart to yours."

Suleiman, though a wise man, was perfectly astonished at the sagacity of his secretary. "Mashalla!" he cried, "you are a more clever man than the philosopher who wrote the ten thousand moral maxims, each of which out-values the world. Be it as you say; but the fountain of my heart will be dried up till I see that beautiful infidel in the harem; for, like Locman, I have learned wisdom from the blind, who are assured of nothing before they touch it."

Achmet undertook to kidnap the child, when Emineh should be employed in carrying the garments of the inmates of the harem to the banks of the Scamander; where the Greek matrons to this day, follow the domestic avocation of the daughters of Priam, and still where many a fair form is laved, no less beautiful, perhaps, than those of the blooming goddesses who bathed their immortal limbs in that very stream ere they contended for the prize of beauty.

One morning, on Emineh's return to the khan, on entering her apartment, she was horror

struck to find her infant missing. She remained for a moment motionless with terror, glancing her regard on every object around, but no where encountering what she sought. She rushed into the apartments of the other women, enquiring of every one for her child: she ran like one distracted into the quarters of the soldiers, demanding of every individual her lost infant, but he was nowhere to be found. No phrenzy is more terrible to behold than the raging agony of a mother deprived of her only child. The death of husband, father, or of friend, has no misery in its calamity comparable to the madness of such grief. The babe which has been snatched from her bosom, is lost to her by no gradual decline of health, by the slow hand of no insidious malady, but is torn from her all at once in rosy health, in smiling beauty: this is a deep sorrow, a heart-rending affliction; and if reason survives its impulse, the instinct of nature is weaker than it is wont to be, or the intellect of the sufferer must be unusually strong. At length the loud violence of despair overpowered the strength of the wretched Emineh, and eventually subsided into

the settled calm of unutterable anguish. The day passed over, and every search was unsuccessful, and at night she would have dragged her tottering limbs to the door of the khan, to go, she knew not where; but the women led her back, her head sunk on her bosom, trailing her feeble steps as she went along, exhausted in mind and body, the most wretched creature on the surface of God's earth. No entreaty could induce her to lie down; all night long she sat at the door of her chamber, shedding no tears, uttering no loud lamentation, but wringing her cold hands, and rocking her throbbing head to and fro, and crying in a feeble voice, whose melancholy tone pierced even the hard hearts of the Albanian savages-" My child! my poor child! my infant! my poor murdered infant !" no other sound escaped her lips, and they ceased not the live-long night. The following day brought no tidings of hope or consolation; the only rumour which prevailed was, that a wild-looking man, in the habit of a dervish, had been seen for some days loitering about the village; no one had observed him since the preceding morning, and the inference was obvious.

The Aga even appeared to sympathize in the affliction of the poor distracted mother; he dispatched some of his soldiers to go in quest of the lost child; he sought to console her with the assurance that God was great, and that what was written in the great book, was written and immutable. What better reasons did she want to be resigned; she asked for none, she talked of nothing but her murdered child ; the impression that her infant had been murdered seemed fixed on her imagination, and that terrible idea penetrated daily deeper and deeper into her brain, till it touched the chords of reason, and spoiled the sweet music of the settled mind, perhaps for ever. The intensity of sorrow at length subsided into a calm and listless melancholy, which one better acquainted with human nature than Suleiman might have looked upon as a lasting and irremediable disorder. It was not his desire to have pushed affliction to such an extremity in depriving her of her infant; his object was, after a few days anxiety, to be considered the instrument of her happiness, by restoring the lost child to her bosom, and causing her to believe he had res

cued the little innocent from the robber, whom the dervish was intended to be accounted.

With such a claim on the gratitude of Emineh, he had little doubt of making her affections the reward of his services. But like all Turkish machinations, the means were not proportioned to the end, and the awkwardness of the execution marred the success of the plot. On the ground of humanity, he had the unfortunate Emineh brought from the enclosure of the khan, where the other Greek women had their apartments, to the interior of the harem, in order, as he said, that his own females might better minister to her wants, and soothe her sorrow. He resolved to delay no longer from his victim the joy of beholding her darling child, and thereby restoring her to health and happiness, the absence of which were already but too visible on her cheek. Had his resolution been carried into effect with ordinary judgment and precaution, it is probable that reason would have resumed her seat; but the truly Turkish mode he adopted, of suddenly presenting the lost child to the eyes of the poor mother, was a shock to the already shattered