n hands, and to toy with the golden thrushes from
Hindostan, and the gaudy birds of Paradise that flew about with
other rare and beautiful songsters in this fairy palace of the
Sultan.

Her companions watching her with loving eyes, never faltered in
their kindness and love for her. Indeed it seemed as though they
could not avoid tendering her this affection, she was so very
beautiful and gentle in all things. They had named her Lalla, or the
tulip, because of her love for that beautiful and delicate flower.

The Sultan looked upon the young Circassian--she had numbered hardly
seventeen summers--more in the light of a daughter than a slave, and
she who could have feared him else, even looked with pleasure for
his coming, and sought in a thousand earnest but silent ways to
please him. There was no spirit of sycophancy in this, no coquetry,
or false pretense; she was all simpleness and truth, and her conduct
towards her master sprang alone from a sense of gratitude. Thus too
did the monarch translate her behaviour to him, for he was well
versed in human nature, young as he was, and could appreciate the
promptings of a young and trusting spirit, such as she exhibited in
all her intercourse with him.

As exhibited in our illustration, the Sultan would often seek her
side in the harem, his tall, manly form contrasting strongly with
her gentle and delicate proportions, and he would regard her thus
with tender solicitude, too fully realizing her misfortune not to
pity and respect her, and he felt too that these frequent meetings
were binding his heart in a tender bondage to her. Sultan Mahomet
was a fine specimen of a Turk; in features he was markedly handsome,
and his long, flowing beard gave to him the appearance of more age
than was rightfully his. His physical developments were manly, and
to look upon he was "every inch a king." Lalla was no less beautiful
as a female; indeed she was far handsomer as it related to such a
comparison, and those who saw them so often together in the harem
could not but think what a noble pair they were, and seemingly
worthy of each other.

She possessed all that soft delicacy of appearance that reminds the
sterner sex how frail and dependent is woman, while she bore in her
face that sweet and winning expression of intellect, that, in other
climes more favored by civilization, and where cultivation adds so
much to the charms of her sex, would alone have marked her as
beautiful. Her eyes,