His beloved was changed: it has been remarked that “folly and insensibility season beauty;” they preserve it indeed, from that alteration which reflection and extreme tenderness, inevitably produce. Aziek’s gentle form was constructed too finely for duration under violent emotions of any kind: her grief at his supposed death, and her joy at finding that grief unfounded, had wasted her visibly; it had exhausted her strength, and gradually dried up the rosy spring that used to colour her cheeks. The brightness of her beauty indeed was clouded, but no disease had fixed on her constitution, no languor pervaded her countenance; and when Sebastian first saw her again after their long separation, he felt not the absence of perfection while his senses were un-shocked by an appearance of absolute decay. The devoted lover ardently kissed the hand which Aziek had extended to him; “I complain of nothing, sweetest Aziek, if I may but retain _yourself_--your heart--your soul!--Live for me, continue to love me--and time, which hastens to wear away such passions as those inspired by mere beauty, will only bind _our_ affections in closer union.--Yes Aziek, it was reserved for your precious character to teach me the nature and the value of real love; of that love which the _Great Being_ beholds with complacency, and will bless hereafter:--till I knew you, I was ignorant how much that sentiment can exalt as well as delight.--We must not part, Aziek!--I cannot--cannot quit you.”-- The tone in which he pronounced the last words, penetrated Kara Aziek; she lifted her dark eyes, and fixed them on his, with the look of one whose heart is overflowing with some feeling they long to express, and share with a beloved object; tears of strong emotion gushed from them, a vivid colour spread over her face, and she threw herself suddenly into his arms, exclaiming--“we are divided now perhaps, by Heaven’s will, only that we may meet again for eternal re-union.” The expression given by her touching voice to the word _eternal_, struck Sebastian forcibly: he recalled the European woman that had conducted him; he looked intently at Aziek:--resolved to believe what he wished, and without giving utterance to his thoughts, he pressed her against his heart with an emotion only to be conceived by one who has felt the same. “That Christian lady whom thou hast just seen,” said Aziek, as she disengaged herself from his arms after a short pause, “is my friend; she was a slave in my uncle’s house, and I bought her to give her liberty, and convey her to a countryman now residing at the Persian court. She was taken in a vessel returning from Venice to England (of which country she is a native,) and having lost her husband during the engagement of the ships, cared too little for life to lament her captivity. I love her, and confide in her: I have told her our story, (but concealing thy rank,) and it is with her I hope to fly to the court of Persia.” “And what is her countryman, Aziek?”