ically, that the governess was softened.

She clasped her hands over her eyes, which were streaming with tears,
and exclaimed: "It is horrible, unheard-of--still, perhaps it is the
best thing to do. Well, go to meet the governor,--ride off, ride off!"

And when the sweet, warm-hearted, joyous creature clang round her neck
she was glad of her own weakness: this fair, fresh, and blooming bud of
humanity should not pine in confinement and seclusion; she should find
and give happiness, to her own joy and that of all good souls, and
unfold to a full and perfect flower. And Eudoxia knew the widow well;
she knew that Joanna would by-and-bye understand why she helped the
child to escape the greatest peril that can hang over a human soul:
that of living in perpetual conflict with itself in the effort to
become something totally different from what, by natural gifts and
inclinations, it is intended to be.

With a sigh of anguish Eudoxia reflected what she herself, forced by
cruel fate and lacking freedom and pleasurable ease, had become, from an
ardent and generous young creature; and she, the narrow-hearted teacher,
could make allowances for the strange, adventurous yearning of a child,
where a larger souled woman might have derided, and blamed and repressed
it.

When it was daylight Eudoxia fulfilled the offices she commonly left
to the maid: she arranged Mary's hair, talking to her and listening the
while, as though in this night the child had developed into a woman.
Then she went into the garden with her, and hardly let her out of her
sight.

At breakfast Joanna and Pulcheria wondered at her singular behavior, but
it did not displease them, and Marv was radiant with contentment.

The widow made no objection to allowing the child to go into the city
to execute her uncle's mysterious commission. Rustem was with her; and
whatever it was that made the child so happy must certainly be right and
unobjectionable. Orion's maps and lists were sent to the prison early
in the day, and before the child set out with her stalwart escort Gibbus
had returned with the prisoner's letter to the Arab governor.

On their way it was agreed that Mary should join Rustem at dusk at the
riverside inn of Nesptah. In these clays of famine and death beasts
of burthen of every description were easily procurable, as well as
attendants and guides; and the Masdakite, who was experienced in such
matters, thought it best to purchase none but swift drome