attire was the artlessness of her manner, which, arising from a virtuous heart and cultivated mind, won the love of all with whom she came in contact. As for Nicholas, he was bewitched, and from the moment his eyes rested upon her, he lost all doubt of the success of his mission. Of the lady in attendance I will only say, that she was of maturer age, and of fuller form. More plainly attired than the royal lady, she wore a robe of green silk, embroidered with flowers of the same color, and a head-dress of silk, slightly sprinkled with large pearls; her brow was high, and her features regular and handsome, but seemingly shadowed with care for the interests and ministers of Christ, to whose doctrines she had long been a convert; for this lady was no other than the illustrious Candida Hiu, of whom the colao had spoken to Nicholas. Her history was remarkable, and may be told in a few lines. The Emperor at the commencement of his reign, had been so favorably disposed to the Christian religion, that, although not a convert himself, he had permitted many of the lords and ladies of his court to embrace its tenets; chief and most sincere among the proselytes had been the prime minister, Paul Syu, whose influence over his weak-minded master had enabled him to protect the missionaries from the jealous bonzes and pagan mandarins around. No sooner, however, had this good man gone to his grave, than the bonzes accused the Christians of endeavoring to subvert the reigning family, and so artfully did they intrigue, that the Emperor ordered the Christians to leave China, and a terrible persecution took place, when all the court but the Lady Candida and the son and daughter of the monarch, returned to the worship of Fo. As I have said, the Emperor's love was so great for his beautiful daughter, that he permitted the princess and her friend Candida to follow the dictates of their own hearts; hence it was that the good lady had been able to protect her fellow-Christians from the rapacity of the bonzes and mandarins, even to obtaining permission for them to remain in Pekin. Further, to show her zeal, she founded at her own cost no less than thirty churches in different parts of the empire, and had vast numbers of religious books translated into Chinese, which she distributed by means not only of blind beggars, but vagabond fortune-tellers, whom she paid handsomely to stand at the corners of streets, and read the Gospel, in place of practicing upon the credulity of the populace with their vile falsehoods. Such were the two ladies now within a few yards of Nicholas. CHAPTER XX. DANGER OF THE PRINCESS.--HER RESCUE BY NICHOLAS.