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smile, he inquired whose child she was; "For," said he, "she cannot be your grand-daughter, as I know you never had any children, and you have long since been too old to become a mother."

"Too old or too young," said the kind old Scherzaran, "she is mine, and so you may go about your business; I want nothing of you, and you shall have nothing from me."

66 That," said he, "remains to be seen; I have come all the way from the furthest territory of the kingdom of Arabia, at the command of my sovereign, to discover, by my magic art, where his only child has been secreted, who was stolen from his palace one night by her false hag of a mother, and committed to the mercy of the waves in a cedar chest. It is of little use your attempting to deceive me; you know that your husband found her at sea. I am sent to bring her back, and my gracious lord and master has commanded me to reward with a chain of inestimable price the person who should have protected her." At these words, thinking to dazzle the eyes of the simple cottager, he drew from his bosom a superb gold chain, studded with the most rare and precious jewels, whose lustre seemed to turn back the declining light of the sun to broad noon. But good old Sherzaran was not to be put from her purpose; her great love for the little Narina, and the strong desire she had to fulfil her duty to the child, made her faithful to the sacred charge she had undertaken. "Your gold and your diamonds," said she, "are no proof that what you tell me is true; the child may be, and I doubt not is, the offspring of some great king or noble; but if he desire to have her restored to him, he must send some one very different in appearance from you to

fetch her." A thought then suddenly came into her head, for seeing that, during this conversation, the old pedlar had entered the cottage door, and as he stood in the room that there was no passage out but by him, she in a low voice told Narina to go to her little bed-room, and put on her silver-feathered shoes. The moment the villain heard these words he made a spring at the child; but Sherzaran, watching him all the while with the tender jealousy of an ewe over her lamb when an enemy is near, struggled between them. In an instant the little foundling was at her bed-side, and as soon the silver-feathered shoes were on her feet. The old dame called for help to her husband without, who, hearing the noise, looked up, and saw his infant charge spring from the window like a terrified bird, and, softly alighting on her feet, speed away towards the mountains, over their valley, with the skimming motion of a swallow when a raincloud is singing in the wind. Ben Hafiz immediately ran to the cottage, and bursting open the door, beheld his trusty partner on the ground, across the passage leading to the little Narina's room, and the old pedlar, whose form had now changed to that of a bird, huge and hairy, on the legs of a beast, striding over her, to follow the object of his pursuit. At the entrance of the shepherd he turned round, and was preparing to seize him in his talons, when the precious ring that hung round the neck of Ben Hafiz caught his eye. The charm of this jewel held him fixed so long as he remained looking upon it (for he could not approach him), but all the while, like a chained fury, he vented the most bitter curses upon the shepherd and his wife. This circumstance first brought Ben Hafiz to remember his ring, and the injunction

he had received from the guardian angel; but before he could pass it on to his finger, the horrid shape rushed through the door of the cottage, with the scream of a flock of vultures that are scared from their meal, leaving the faithful couple swooning on the ground at the horrid vision.

Upon returning to their senses, Narina was the first object of their thoughts, and inquiries of each other. Where to seek for her they could not tell, for the last glimpse that the shepherd had of her was, when she was darting through a pass in the mountains with the swiftness of an arrow. He however arose, and went forth, directing his steps towards the quarter whence he had caught the last appearance of her little form. He took care, at the same time, upon leaving his cottage, to look behind and around him, lest the dreadful object of their late trouble should be watching his motions. He had scarcely reached the boundary of his valley, when, in the deep gloom of that eastern evening, he perceived a light, as of a summer meteor, flit past him, and before he could turn to follow its course, it had increased to a splendid, yet mild radiance, in the midst of which he beheld the wellknown form of his angel-visiter, while at the same moment his hand was clasped by the sweet little object of his search. "Go on, Ben Hafiz," said the gentle dweller of eternity; "be faithful to your trust, and you will be happy. No one was ever miserable in your world (the world I have left) who loved the truth, and performed what he felt to be his duty. In that world I had my sorrows, and they were of the deepest die; yet was I never wholly stricken down; I wept at the weakness and injustice of others, but never experienced that greatest of all afflictions- the reproaches

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