Aphiz was as noble and generous in spirit as he was handsome in person.  Nature had cast him in a sinewy, yet graceful form; his native mountain air and vigorous habits had ripened his physical developments to an early manliness and already had he more than once charged the enemy upon the open plains of his native land.  His falchion had glanced in the tide of battle, and his stout arm had dealt many a fatal blow to the Cossack forces, that sought to conquer and possess themselves of all Circassia.  It was a stern school for the young mountaineer, and it was well, as he grew up in this manner, that there was always the tender and chastening association before his mind, of his love for the gentle and beautiful girl who had given her young heart into his keeping.  He needed such promptings to enable him to combat the rough associations of the camp, and the hardening duty of a soldier in time of war.

It was, therefore, to her side that he came for that true happiness that emanates from the better feelings of the heart; by her side that he enjoyed the quiet but grand scenery of their native hills and valleys, looking, as it were, through each other’s eyes at every beauty, either of thought or that lay tangible before them.

Though both Komel and Aphiz had been thrice happy in their constant intercourse in the days of childhood, though those day. so well remembered, had been to them like a pleasant morning filled with song, or the gliding on of a summer stream, and were marked only by truthfulness and peaceful content, still both realized as they now entered upon a riper age of youth, that they were far happier than ever before, that they loved each other better, and all things about them.  It is an error to suppose that childhood is the happiest period of life, though philosophers tell us so, for a child’s pleasures are like early spring flowers—­pretty, but pale, and fleeting, and scentless.  The rich and fragrant treasures of the heart are not developed so early; they come with life’s summer, and thus it was with these Circassian youths.

Growing up daily and hourly together to that period when love holds strongest sway over the heart, both felt how happily they could kneel before Heaven and be pronounced one and inseparable; but Aphiz was poor and had no home to offer a bride, besides which, the character of the times was sufficient to prevent their more prudent parents from yielding their consent to such an arrangement as their immediate union, though they offered no opposition to their intimacy.

Komel was of such a happy and cheerful disposition at heart that she scattered pleasure always about her, but Aphiz’s very love rendered him thoughtful and perhaps at times a little melancholy; for he feared that some future chance might in an unforeseen, way rob him of her who was so ineffably dear to him.  He did not exactly fear that Komel’s parents would sell her to go to Constantinople, though they were now, since war and pestilence had swept away lands, home and title, poor enough; and yet there was an undefined fear ever acting in his heart as to her he loved.  Sometimes when he realized this most keenly, he could not help whispering his forebodings to Komel herself.