d have never been slaves to the Turks;
then she has been here ever since our chief came back; for he brought
her in his vessel with Signor Paolo, your brother, who knows more about
her than I do; and I suspect, loves her also not a little. And with
regard to what she is like--she is not so tall as you are, signora; but
her skin is as clear as yours, and fair as the foam blown across the
ocean in a winter's storm, with some of the hue stolen from the rose on
her cheeks; and her eyes--so soft they are, and of the same tint as the
brightest spot in the cloudless sky above our heads."

How long little Mila, having now ventured once to let her tongue run
loose on the forbidden subject, would have continued recapitulating the
praises of the stranger lady--little dreaming of the wounds she was
inflicting on the feelings of her older friend and mistress--it is
impossible to say, had not Nina interrupted her.

"I must go and see this stranger lady!" she exclaimed, in a tone which
startled the little girl, and taught her that it would have been wiser
to have obeyed orders, and not mentioned her. "Come, Mila, we will go
at once, and you shall run up into her room, and announce me."

"Oh, dear! signora, that will never do," answered the Greek girl. "You
forget that the directions of our chief forbid you to quit your tower;
and what would he say, were he to hear that you had visited that of the
stranger lady. He is certain to come back, and find you there."

Nina had, however, so determined to satisfy her jealous suspicions, that
she overruled all Mila's scruples.

"If I find them fatally true, a speedy death will be my only resource,
or, ah! that of my rival;" so ran the current of her thoughts. "I could
not let her live in the triumphant enjoyment of what I had lost--his
love. I could not bear to think that other ears but mine own hear the
tender accents of his voice, which speaks so eloquently to me of love.
'Twould be madness to know that I were flung aside for one more young
and beautiful, perchance, but one who could not feel for him one tenth
part of the intense love I bear him. I must go and see her. If she
is--oh! God, what?" And her hand touched, unconsciously, the hilt of a
small dagger she wore in her girdle.

Ada Garden was sitting in her chamber when little Mila hurried into her
presence, and intimated, as well as she could, that a lady desired to
see her, flying out at the same speed with which she ente