To say that Komel was insensible to all her personal advantages
would be unreasonable, and supposing her not possessed of an
ordinary degree of perception. She knew that she was fair, nay, that
she was more beautiful than any of the youthful companions of her
native valley; but whatever others might have anticipated for her,
she had never looked forward, as nearly all of her sex do, in
Circassia, to a splendid foreign home across the Black Sea. No, no;
her young and loving heart had already made its choice of him she
had so long and tenderly loved,--him who had stepped in when there
was that vacant spot in her heart that her brother's loss had left,
and filled it; for he had been both brother and lover to her from
the tenderest years of childhood. They had probably thought little
upon the subject of their relation to each other, and had said less,
until Komel was nearly sixteen, and then it was only in that tender
and hopeful strain of a happy future, and that future to be shared
by each other.

Aphiz was as noble and generous in spirit as he was handsome in
person. Nature had cast him in a sinewy, yet graceful form; his
native mountain air and vigorous habits had ripened his physical
developments to an early manliness and already had he more than once
charged the enemy upon the open plains of his native land. His
falchion had glanced in the tide of battle, and his stout arm had
dealt many a fatal blow to the Cossack forces, that sought to
conquer and possess themselves of all Circassia. It was a stern
school for the young mountaineer, and it was well, as he grew up in
this manner, that there was always the tender and chastening
association before his mind, of his love for the gentle and
beautiful girl who had given her young heart into his keeping. He
needed such promptings to enable him to combat the rough