men in Media, of royal blood and of more than royal
beauty.

She was born in that year when Babylon was overthrown, and Daniel had
brought her with him to Shushan when he had quitted Assyria, and thence
to Ecbatana. In the care of the prophet's kinswomen the little maid had
thriven and grown fair in the stranger's land. Her soft child's eyes had
lost their wondering look and had turned very proud and dark, and the
long black lashes that fringed the heavy lids drooped to her cheek when
she looked down. Her features were noble and almost straight in outline,
but in the slight bend, at the beginning of the nose, in the wide curved
nostrils, the strong full lips, and in the pale olive skin, where the
blood ebbed and flowed so generously, the signs of the Jewish race were
all present and unmistakable.

Nehushta, the high-born lady of Judah, was a princess in every movement,
in every action, in every word she uttered. The turn of her proud head
was sovereign in its expression of approval or contempt, and Zoroaster
himself bowed to the simple gesture of her hand as obediently as he
would have done before the Great King in all his glory. Even the
venerable prophet, sitting in his lofty tower high above the city and
the fortress, absorbed in the contemplation of that other life which was
so very near to him, smiled tenderly and stretched out his old hands to
greet Nehushta when she mounted to his chamber at sunset, attended by
her maidens and her slaves. She was the youngest of all his
kinsfolk--fatherless and motherless, the last direct descendant of King
Jehoiakim remaining in Media, and the aged prophet and governor
cherished her and loved her for her royalty, as well as for her beauty
and her kinship to himself. Assyrian in his education, Persian in his
adherence to the conquering dynasty and in his long and faithful service
of the Persians, Daniel was yet in his heart, as in his belief, a true
son of Judah; proud of his race and tender of its young branches, as
though he were himself the father of his country and the king of his
people.

The last red glow of the departed day faded and sank above the black
Zagros mountains to westward. The opposite sky was cold and gray, and
all the green plain turned to a dull soft hue as the twilight crept
over it, ever darker and more misty. In the gardens of the palace the
birds in thousands sang together in chorus, as only Eastern birds do
sing at sunrise and at nightfall, and their