of Elenko.  Yet he seemed magnificently unconscious of any cause for apprehension, while Elenko’s heart swelled till it was like to burst.  She had the further satisfaction of knowing herself the best hated woman in Caucasia, between the enmity of those of whose admirers she had made an involuntary conquest, and of those who found her standing between them and Prometheus.  Her monopoly of Greek, she felt sure, was her only security.  Two constant attendants at Prometheus’s receptions particularly alarmed her, the Princess Miriam, niece of the Bishop, a handsome widow accustomed to have things as she wished them; and a tall veiled woman who seemed unknown to all, but whose unseen eyes, she instinctively knew, were never averted from the unconscious Prometheus.

It was therefore with some trepidation that she received a summons to the private apartment of the Princess Miriam.

“Dear friend,” the Princess began, “thou knowest the singular affection which I have invariably entertained for thee.”

“Right well do I know it,” responded Elenko. ("The thirty-first lie to-day,” she added wearily to herself.)

“It is this affection, dear friend,” continued the Princess, “which induces me on the present occasion to transgress the limits of conventional propriety, and make a communication distressing to thee, but infinitely more so to myself.”

Elenko implored the Princess to make no such sacrifice in the cause of friendship, but the great lady was resolute.

“People say,” she continued—­

“What say they?”

“That thy relation to Desmotes is indiscreet.  That it is equivocal.  That it is offensive.  That it is sacrilegious.  That, in a word, it is improper.”

Elenko defended herself with as much energy as her candour would allow.

“Dear friend,” said the Princess, “thou dost not imagine that I have part or lot in these odious imputations?  Even could I deem them true, should I not think charitably of thee, but yesterday a heathen, and educated in impiety by a foul sorcerer?  My poor lamb!  But tongues must be stopped, and I have now to advise thee how this may be accomplished.”

“Say on.”

“People will always talk so long as thou art the sole medium of communication with the holy man.  Some deem him less ignorant of our speech than he seems, but concerning this I inquire not:  for, in society, what seems, is.  Enough that thy colloquies expose thee to scandal.  There is but one remedy.  Thou must yield thy place to another.  It is meet that thou forthwith instruct in that barbarous dialect some matron of unblemished repute and devout aspirations; no mere ignorant devotee, however, but a woman of the world, whose prudence and experience may preserve the holy man from the pitfalls set for him by the unprincipled.  Manifestly she must be a married person, else nought were gained, yet must she not be chargeable with forsaking her duties towards her husband