Two long years had elapsed since the Sultan had announced to her his intention of bestowing her hand on Mustapha Pasha of Adrianople; and she had received with indifference the intimation of a resolve which made the heart of the Sultana-Mother throb with maternal pride. But ere long the fair Princess herself learnt to believe that her constellation had been a happy one; and to listen with smiling attention to the flattering accounts which the ladies of the Imperial Harem failed not to pour into her willing ears of the Pasha’s wealth, influence, and great personal beauty. The singing-women improvised in his honour, with all the gorgeous hyperbole of the East—the massaldjhes[1] told tales of his wisdom and valour that brought a brighter light to the dark eyes of their listener—and ultimately the Sultan forwarded to his daughter a miniature likeness of her intended bridegroom. Then it was that the Princess became convinced that the personal qualifications of the Pasha had been by no means exaggerated even by his most partial chroniclers; and the young beauty sat for hours amid her embroidered cushions, silently gazing on the portrait which she held in her hand, and marvelling whether she should look as fair in the eyes of her destined lord as he already seemed in her own. She was not long to remain in doubt; for the Pasha, to whom his good fortune had been communicated by his Imperial Master, obeyed the summons that called him to the capital, and forwarded to his high-born mistress his first costly offering. The heart of the Princess beat high. He was in Stamboul! The wife of the meanest _camal_[2] might look on him as his shadow fell upon her in the streets of the city; while she, his affianced bride, could only picture him to her fancy by gazing on the cold inanimate ivory. She turned from the diamonds that her slaves had officiously displayed upon the sofa on which she sat; they came from him, it was true, but they told no tale of love—they were the offering of ceremony—the tribute of the honoured Pasha to his honouring bride—they had pleased her fancy, but they had not touched her heart. Night spread her sable robe upon the waters—the channel lay hushed, for the soft wind failed to disturb the ripple over which it lightly skimmed—the Sultana-mother and the affianced Princess were dwelling in the gilded saloons of the Asiatic Harem—in the fairy palace of Beglierbey, and the slaves had long been hushed in sleep—and it was at this still hour that the dark-eyed daughter of the Sultan, who had been leaning against the lattices of an open window, listening to the nightingales, and weaving sweet fancies into a graceful web of thought, turned from the casement to seek the rest which she had hitherto neglected to secure; when as she moved away, a sound of distant oars fell on her ear, and with a vague feeling of curiosity she paused and listened.