inued Julia. 'I am the daughter
of Diomed the wealthy.'

'Ah! forgive me; yes, I recall the tones of your voice. No, noble
Julia, I have no flowers to sell.'

'I heard that thou wert purchased by the beautiful Greek Glaucus; is
that true, pretty slave?' asked Julia.

'I serve the Neapolitan, Ione,' replied Nydia, evasively.

'Ah! and it is true, then...'

'Come, come!' interrupted Diomed, with his cloak up to his mouth, 'the
night grows cold; I cannot stay here while you prate to that blind girl:
come, let her follow you home, if you wish to speak to her.'

'Do, child,' said Julia, with the air of one not accustomed to be
refused; 'I have much to ask of thee: come.'

'I cannot this night, it grows late,' answered Nydia. 'I must be at
home; I am not free, noble Julia.'

'What, the meek Ione will chide thee?--Ay, I doubt not she is a second
Thalestris. But come, then, to-morrow: do--remember I have been thy
friend of old.'

'I will obey thy wishes,' answered Nydia; and Diomed again impatiently
summoned his daughter: she was obliged to proceed, with the main
question she had desired to put to Nydia unasked.

Meanwhile we return to Ione. The interval of time that had elapsed that
day between the first and second visit of Glaucus had not been too gaily
spent: she had received a visit from her brother. Since the night he
had assisted in saving her from the Egyptian, she had not before seen
him.

Occupied with his own thoughts--thoughts of so serious and intense a
nature--the young priest had thought little of his sister; in truth,
men, perhaps of that fervent order of mind which is ever aspiring above
earth, are but little prone to the earthlier affections; and it had been
long since Apaecides had sought those soft and friendly interchanges of
thought, those sweet confidences, which in his earlier youth had bound
him to Ione, and which are so natural to that endearing connection which
existed between them.

Ione, however, had not ceased to regret his estrangement: she attributed
it, at present, to the engrossing duties of his severe fraternity. And
often, amidst all her bright hopes, and her new attachment to her
betrothed--often, when she thought of her brother's brow prematurely
furrowed, his unsmiling lip, and bended frame, she sighed to think that
the service of the gods could throw so deep a shadow over that earth
which the gods created.

But this day when he visited her there was a strange calmne