s. She lingered for the most part near
the shore on which she had been thrown, fearing lest, if away, a ship
might pass in her absence.

Each day she bathed her beauteous form in the Mediterranean; each day
she devoted some little time to the adornment of her person with wreaths
of flowers. She wove crowns for her head--necklaces, bracelets, and
scarfs,--combining the flowers so as to form the most wild and fanciful
devices, and occasionally surveying herself in the natural mirror
afforded her by the limpid stream. Purposely wearing an apparel as
scanty as possible, on account of the oppressive heat which prevailed
during each day of twelve long hours, and which was not materially
moderated at night, she supplied to some extent the place of the
superfluous garments thus thrown aside, by means of tissues of cool,
refreshing, fragrant flowers.

Thus, by the time she had been ten or twelve days upon the island, her
appearance seemed most admirably to correspond with her new and lonely
mode of life, and the spot where her destinies had cast her. Habited in
a single linen garment, confined round the slender waist with a cestus
of flowers, and with light slippers upon her feet, but with a diadem of
roses on her head, and with wreaths round her bare arms, and her equally
bare ankles, she appeared to be the goddess of that island--the genius
of that charming clime of fruits, and verdure, and crystal streams, and
flowers. The majesty of her beauty was softened, and thus enhanced, by
the wonderful simplicity of her attire; the dazzling brilliancy of her
charms was subdued by the chaste, the innocent, the primitive aspect
with which those fantastically woven flowers invested her. Even the
extraordinary luster of her fine dark eyes was moderated by the gaudy
yet elegant assemblage of hues formed by those flowers which she wore.
Was it not strange that she whose soul we have hitherto seen bent on
deeds or schemes of stern and important nature--who never acted without
a motive, and whose mind was far too deeply occupied with worldly cares
and pursuits to bestow a thought on trifles--who, indeed, would have
despised herself had she wasted a moment in toying with a flower, or
watching the playful motions of a bird,--was it not strange that Nisida
should have become so changed as we now find her in that island of which
she was the queen?

Conceive that same Nisida who planned dark plots against Flora
Francatelli, now tripping along t