_Filippo._ Yet it may be got at; she being a Biscayan by birth, as she told me, and not only baptized, but going by sea along the coast for confirmation, when she was captured. _Eugenius._ Alas! to what an imposition of hands was this tender young thing devoted! Poor soul! _Filippo._ I sigh for her myself when I think of her. _Eugenius._ Beware lest the sigh be mundane, and lest the thought recur too often. I wish it were presently in my power to examine her myself on her condition. What thinkest thou? Speak. _Filippo._ Holy Father! she would laugh in your face. _Eugenius._ So lost! _Filippo._ She declared to me she thought she should have died, from the instant she was captured until she was comforted by Abdul: but that she was quite sure she should if she were ransomed. _Eugenius._ Has the wretch then shaken her faith? _Filippo._ The very last thing he would think of doing. Never did I see the virtue of resignation in higher perfection than in the laughing, light-hearted Almeida. _Eugenius._ Lamentable! Poor lost creature! lost in this world and in the next. _Filippo._ What could she do? how could she help herself? _Eugenius._ She might have torn his eyes out, and have died a martyr. _Filippo._ Or have been bastinadoed, whipped, and given up to the cooks and scullions for it. _Eugenius._ Martyrdom is the more glorious the greater the indignities it endures. _Filippo._ Almeida seems unambitious. There are many in our Tuscany who would jump at the crown over those sloughs and briers, rather than perish without them: she never sighs after the like. _Eugenius._ Nevertheless, what must she witness! what abominations! what superstitions! _Filippo._ Abdul neither practises nor exacts any other superstition than ablutions. _Eugenius._ Detestable rites! without our authority. I venture to affirm that, in the whole of Italy and Spain, no convent of monks or nuns contains a bath; and that the worst inmate of either would shudder at the idea of observing such a practice in common with the unbeliever. For the washing of the feet indeed we have the authority of the earlier Christians; and it may be done; but solemnly and sparingly. Thy residence among the Mahomedans, I am afraid, hath rendered thee more favourable to them than beseems a Catholic, and thy mind, I do suspect, sometimes goes back into Barbary unreluctantly.