"She answers the purpose," replied Lambro. "We've done without a priest so far. She's mine because I bought her. Five hundred beshliks she cost me in the slave-mart of Janina. A deal of money, a great deal of money," continued the old fellow, wincing as if he had had a tooth drawn. "I'm doubtful whether I've had the value of it. I could have bought a lovely young Circassian at the price. But since she was warranted to be a splendid nurse and an excellent cook, I took her as a helpmeet for my old age." Paul trusted that Barbara did not understand Romaic, for the old Palicar's society was not exactly of the sort that a matronly duenna would have chosen as suitable for a young maiden. The interior of Castel Nuovo formed a pleasant and striking contrast with its dilapidated exterior. The apartment to which the visitors were conducted was stamped with an air of wealth and dignity,--lofty, composed of dark oak, and furnished with stained-glass casements, blazoned in their centre with the Winged Lion of St. Mark. The roof was richly fretted; the pictures painted on the panelling of the walls were in a fine state of preservation. On the wide tesselated hearth beneath a beautifully carved mantelpiece were pine logs disposed as for a fire. To these Jacintha applied a match, and soon a blaze sprang up, so bright as to render any other light superfluous. "The Master's dining-hall," remarked Lambro. "Let me help you, my lady," said Jacintha, observing Barbara embarrassed with the fastenings of her capote. She assisted in untying the hood, and having removed the cloak, seated Barbara in a comfortable arm-chair by the fire. Despite the Romaic costume worn by Jacintha, and the golden coins twisted in her hair, Paul had no difficulty in fixing her nationality. "You are an Englishwoman?" he said, with a smile. "Yes, sir, I am," was her reply, accompanied by a submissive little curtsey. A few words on her part sufficed to give her history. Nurse in the service of an English doctor at Constantinople, she had, when returning home, been captured by Turkish pirates, and carried to Janina for sale, where she was purchased by Lambro, and brought to Castel Nuovo. Paul's ears tingled at the thought of an Englishwoman being sold in an Albanian slave-mart. He wondered whether she knew that she was now living in a free country. Her real name was Winifred Power, but Lambro would persist in calling her Jacintha. It so happened that Paul was well acquainted with her native town, inasmuch as his school-days had been passed in its neighborhood. His allusions to places with which both were familiar drew tears to the woman's eyes. "Ah! do not talk of home," she said. "Every week I can see from the windows here the steamer from Trieste on its way to England; a few days' sail only, and yet as impossible for me to reach as the stars."