r with the wretched Neforis; what
was it that enabled one to bear the equal loss with so much more
dignity than the other? Nothing but the presence of the tender-hearted
Pulcheria, who shared her sorrow with such beautiful resignation,
such ready and complete sympathy. This the governor's widow had wholly
lacked; and how happy were they who could call such a heart their own!
He walked through the garden with his head bent, and looking neither to
the right hand nor the left.

The Masdakite, who was still sitting with Mandane under the sycamore,
as indifferent to the torrid heat as she was, looked after him, and said
with a sigh as he pointed to him:

"There he goes. This is the first time he ever said a rude word to you
or to me: or did you not understand?"

"Oh yes," said she in a low voice, looking down at her needlework.

They talked in Persian, for she had not forgotten the language which her
mother had spoken till her dying day.

Life is sometimes as strange as a fairy-tale; and the accident was
indeed wonderful which had brought these two beings, of all others, at
the same time to the sick room. His distant home was also hers, and he
even knew her uncle--her father's brother--and her father's sad history.

When the Greek army had taken possession of the province where they
had lived, the men had fled into the woods with their flocks and herds,
while the women and children took refuge in the fortress which defended
the main road. This had not long held out against the Byzantines, and
the women, among them Mandane with her mother, had been handed over to
the soldiers as precious booty. Her father had then joined the troops to
rescue the women, but he and his comrades had only lost their lives in
the attempt. To this day the valiant man's end was a tale told in his
native place, and his property and valuable rose gardens now belonged to
his younger brother. So the two convalescents had plenty to talk about.

It was curious to note how clearly the memories of her childhood were
stamped on Mandane's mind.

She had laid her wounded head on the pillow of sickness with a darkened
brain, and the new pain had lifted the veil from her mind as a storm
clears the oppressive atmosphere of a sultry summer's day. She loved to
linger now among the scenes of her childhood--the time when she had
a mother.--Or she would talk of the present; all between was like a
night-sky black, and only lighted up by an awful comet and shini