on the balcony from which was a view of the valley of
Tatrang flooded with moonlight. While the men talked seriously and the
children gave themselves up to play, the two ladies began one of those
confidential conversations so dear to young women, especially when
they have so much to tell each other, to ask and to inquire, as these
two had. Madame Beldi sat down beside Katharine, took her
affectionately by the hand and asked half in jest;--"So your husband
has no other wife?"

Katharine laughed, but there was a little vexation with it, as she
said;--"I suppose you think a Hungarian marries a Turk only to be his
slave. My husband loves me dearly."

"I don't doubt it, Katharine, but that certainly is the custom with
you."

"With _us_! I am no Turk."

"What then?"

"A Protestant like yourself. It was a Protestant who married me--the
Reverend Martin Biro, who lives in Constantinople in banishment, and
to whom my husband in his gratitude gave a house where the
Transylvanians and Hungarians living in Constantinople can meet for
worship."

"What, does not your husband persecute the Christians?"

"No, indeed. The Turks believe that every religion is good and leads
to heaven, only they think their own religion is the best; for in
their opinion theirs leads the way to the heaven of heavens. Besides,
my husband has a kind heart and is much more enlightened than most
Turks."

"Then why couldn't you bring him over to the Christian faith?"

"Why not? perhaps because whenever the story-tellers relate the
romance of a Turk who fell in love with a Christian girl, they end the
tale with her bringing him to baptism and exchanging the caftan for a
coat. In this case they have a romance in which the wife follows her
husband and sacrifices everything for him."

"You are quite right, Katharine, but you see it takes me some little
time to become accustomed to the thought that a Christian, a Hungarian
woman, can have a Turk for a husband."

"But consider, my good friend, God might not have counted it such a
good service on my part if I had brought my husband over to our
religion, as he does that I left him in the religion in which he was
born. A Christian renegade, the most that he could have done would
have been to take his place in the Church. But now, as one of the most
influential Pashas, he can transform the fate of any Christian in
Turkey to one so favorable that the Christian subjects of other lands
crowd thither as to the