grace. Raymond had a confused remembrance that he had seen such a form
before; he walked across the room; she did not raise her eyes, merely
asking in Romaic, who is there? "A friend," replied Raymond in the same
dialect. She looked up wondering, and he saw that it was Evadne Zaimi.
Evadne, once the idol of Adrian's affections; and who, for the sake of her
present visitor, had disdained the noble youth, and then, neglected by him
she loved, with crushed hopes and a stinging sense of misery, had returned
to her native Greece. What revolution of fortune could have brought her to
England, and housed her thus?

Raymond recognized her; and his manner changed from polite beneficence to
the warmest protestations of kindness and sympathy. The sight of her, in
her present situation, passed like an arrow into his soul. He sat by her,
he took her hand, and said a thousand things which breathed the deepest
spirit of compassion and affection. Evadne did not answer; her large dark
eyes were cast down, at length a tear glimmered on the lashes. "Thus," she
cried, "kindness can do, what no want, no misery ever effected; I weep."
She shed indeed many tears; her head sunk unconsciously on the shoulder of
Raymond; he held her hand: he kissed her sunken tear-stained cheek. He told
her, that her sufferings were now over: no one possessed the art of
consoling like Raymond; he did not reason or declaim, but his look shone
with sympathy; he brought pleasant images before the sufferer; his caresses
excited no distrust, for they arose purely from the feeling which leads a
mother to kiss her wounded child; a desire to demonstrate in every possible
way the truth of his feelings, and the keenness of his wish to pour balm
into the lacerated mind of the unfortunate. As Evadne regained her
composure, his manner became even gay; he sported with the idea of her
poverty. Something told him that it was not its real evils that lay heavily
at her heart, but the debasement and disgrace attendant on it; as he
talked, he divested it of these; sometimes speaking of her fortitude with