overhung with myrtles and jessamines. It looked into
an interior garden, or court, set out with orange trees, in the midst of
which was a marble fountain, surrounded by a grassy bank, enamelled with
flowers.

It was the high noontide of a summer day, when, in sultry Spain, the
landscape trembles to the eye, and all nature seeks repose, except the
grasshopper, that pipes his lulling note to the herdsman as he sleeps
beneath the shade.

Around the fountain were several of the damsels of the queen, who,
confident of the sacred privacy of the place, were yielding in that cool
retreat to the indulgence prompted by the season and the hour. Some lay
asleep on the flowery bank; others sat on the margin of the fountain,
talking and laughing, as they bathed their feet in its limpid waters, and
King Roderick beheld delicate limbs shining through the wave, that might
rival the marble in whiteness.

Among the damsels was one who had come from the Barbary coast with the
queen. Her complexion had the dark tinge of Mauritania, but it was clear
and transparent, and the deep rich rose blushed through the lovely brown.
Her eyes were black and full of fire, and flashed from under long silken
eye-lashes.

A sportive contest arose among the maidens, as to the comparative beauty
of the Spanish and Moorish forms; but the Mauritanian damsel revealed
limbs of voluptuous symmetry that seemed to defy all rivalry.

The Spanish beauties were on the point of giving up the contest, when they
bethought themselves of the young Florinda, the daughter of Count Julian,
who lay on the grassy bank, abandoned to a summer slumber. The soft glow
of youth and health mantled on her cheek; her fringed eyelashes scarcely
covered their sleeping orbs; her moist and ruby lips were lightly parted,
just revealing a gleam of her ivory teeth; while her innocent bosom rose
and fell beneath her bodice, like the gentle swelling and sinking of a
tranquil sea. There was a breathing tenderness and beauty in the sleeping
virgin, that seemed to send forth sweetness like the flowers around her.

'Behold,' cried her companions exultingly, 'the champion of Spanish
beauty!'

In their playful eagerness they half disrobed the innocent Florinda before
she was aware. She awoke in time, however, to escape from their busy
hands; but enough of her charms had been revealed to convince the monarch
that they were not to be rivalled by the rarest beauties of Mauritania.

From this day