infidels.  No one, however, had ever brought a more exact report of his death; and at last their indefatigable enquiries had resulted in their learning that he had been taken prisoner by the Saracens and carried into slavery in Arabia.  This report received confirmation through the efforts of Orion and his deceased father.  Within a few hours of the young Egyptian’s departure, they received a letter from the youth they had given up for lost, written in trembling characters, in which he implored them to effect his deliverance through Amru, the Arab governor of Egypt.  The old people had set forth at once on their pilgrimage, and Heliodora had done her part in urging them to this step.  Her passion for Orion, to whom, for more than a year, her gentle heart had been wholly devoted, had increased every hour since his departure.  She had not concealed it from Martina, who thought it no less than her duty to stand by the poor lovesick child; for Heliodora had nursed her husband, the senator’s nephew, to the end, with touching fidelity and care; and besides, Martina had given the young Egyptian—­with whom she was “quite in love herself”—­every opportunity of paying his addresses to the young widow.

They were a pair that seemed made for each other, and Martina delighted in match-making.  But in this case, though hearts had met, hands had not, and finally it had been a real grief to Martina to hear Orion and Heliodora called—­and with good reason—­a pair of lovers.

Once she had appealed in her genial way to the young man’s conscience, and he had replied that his father, who was a Jacobite, would never consent to his union with a woman of any other confession.  At that time she had found little to answer; but she had often thought if only she could make the Mukaukas acquainted with Heliodora, he, whom she had known in the capital as a young and handsome admirer of every charming woman, would certainly capitulate.

Her favorite niece had indeed every grace that a father’s heart could desire to attract the son.  She was of good family, the widow of a man of rank, rich, but just two and twenty, and beautiful enough to bewitch old or young.  A sweeter and gentler soul Martina had never known.  Those large dewy eyes-imploring eyes, she called them—­might soften a stone, and her fair waving hair was as soft as her nature.  Add to this her full, supple figure—­and how perfectly she dressed, how exquisitely she sang and struck the lute!  It was not for nothing that she was courted by every youth of rank in Constantinople—­and if the old Mukaukas could but hear her laugh!  There was not a sound on earth more clear, more glad than Heliodora’s laugh.  She was not indeed remarkable for intellect, but no one could call her a simpleton, and your very clever women were not to every man’s taste.