It was only for a moment, however, when the beautiful stranger pointed to her mouth and ears significantly, and gently shook her head with a sadness of expression that was electrical, for each one instantly understood her meaning, and pitied her.  Some little feeling of envy might have been ready to burst forth in the breasts of those about her, but gentle pity loves to linger by beauty’s side, and so they all loved and condoled with the fair stranger.  One took her hand and led her to a cushion in the centre of the little circle that had just been formed, another unloosed the wealth of beautiful hair that astonished them by its dark richness and profusion as it fell about her fair neck.  She who had unloosed the new comer’s hair, now fell to braiding it in solid masses and plaiting it about her head.

A second one taking a rare bracelet of pearls off her own fair arms, placed it upon the Circassian’s, and sealed it there with a kiss!—­Another removed the leather shoes she wore, and replaced them with satin ones of curious workmanship and richly wrought with thread of gold, and still another loosened the coarse mantle that enshrouded her shoulders, and covered her with a shawl that had come across the desert from the far east, rich in texture and beautiful as costly.  And as another tossed a handful of fresh flowers into her lap, the poor girl’s cheeks became wet with tears, for their unselfish kindness and generous tenderness had touched heart.

But these tokens were quickly brushed away and kisses took their place, while fair and delicate hands were busy upon her, until the poor slave who had so lately stood exposed in the open bazaar of the capital, now saw among this family of the Turkish monarch, literally as a star of the harem.  In beauty, she did indeed outshine them all, but they forgot this in the memory of her misfortune, and envied not the dumb slave.  They touched her fingers with henna dye, and anointed her with rare and costly perfumes, seeming to vie with each other in their interesting efforts to deck and beautify one who had only the voluptuous softness of her dark eyes to thank them with, for those lovely lips, of such tempting freshness in their coral hue, could utter no sound.

They brought to her all their jewels and rich ornaments to amuse her, and each one contributed to give her from out their store some becoming ornament, now a diamond broach, and now a ruby ring, next a necklace of emeralds, interspersed with glowing opals, a fourth added a girdle of golden chain braced at every link by close and richly cut garnets, and other rings of sapphire and amethysts, until the lovely stranger was dazzling with the combined brilliancy and reflection of so many rare and beautiful jewels about her person.

It was not the jewels that so gratified the young Circassian, but the good will they represented.  She cared little for them intrinsically, beautiful and rich as they were, but she grew very fast to love the donors.