e and Gaumata! If I were a poet I should
call my hero Gaumata and his lady-love Mandane."

"I insist on your ceasing to jest in this way," cried Mandane, blushing
deeply and stamping her foot.

"What, are you angry because I say the names sound well together? You
ought rather to be angry with the proud Oropastes, who sent his younger
brother to Rhagar and you to the court, that you might forget one
another."

"That is a slander on my benefactor."

"Let my tongue wither away, if I am not speaking the truth and nothing
but the truth! Oropastes separated you and his brother because he had
higher intentions for the handsome Gaumata, than a marriage with the
orphan daughter of an inferior Magian. He would have been satisfied with
Amytis or Menische for a sister-in-law, but a poor girl like you, who
owed everything to his bounty, would only have stood in the way of his
ambitious plans. Between ourselves, he would like to be appointed regent
of Persia while the king is away at the Massagetan war, and would
therefore give a great deal to connect himself by marriage in some way or
other with the Archemenidae. At his age a new wife is not to be thought
of; but his brother is young and handsome, indeed people go so far as to
say, that he is like the Prince Bartja."

"That is true," exclaimed the girl. "Only think, when we went out to meet
my mistress, and I saw Bartja for the first time from the window of the
station-house, I thought he was Gaumata. They are so like one another
that they might be twins, and they are the handsomest men in the
kingdom."

"How you are blushing, my pretty rose-bud! But the likeness between them
is not quite so great as all that. When I spoke to the high-priest's
brother this morning . . ."

"Gaumata is here?" interrupted the girl passionately. "Have you really
seen him or are you trying to draw me out and make fun of me?"

"By Mithras! my sweet one, I kissed his forehead this very morning, and
he made me tell him a great deal about his darling. Indeed his blue eyes,
his golden curls and his lovely complexion, like the bloom on a peach,
were so irresistible that I felt inclined to try and work impossibilities
for him. Spare your blushes, my little pomegranate-blossom, till I have
told you all; and then perhaps in future you will not be so hard upon
poor Boges; you will see that he has a good heart, full of kindness for
his beautiful, saucy little countrywoman."

"I do not trust you," she ans