'
"Certainly I thought she was bewitched. It was a glaring, large, red
bough, full of blowzy blossoms, and yellow berries, with a musky, foeted
odour. 'Why,' I exclaimed, 'you have as much reason to be jealous of old
Kamalia, your nurse, as the rose to be jealous of such a scraggy bramble
as this! Faugh! the smell makes me sick.'
"I suppose I was instigated to make this rude speech by her fondling
and kissing it. Her dark eyes expanded; and she seemed, for an instant,
to view me with astonishment, then with sorrow; as they closed, I
perceived that their brightness was gone, and the long, jetty fringe,
which arched upwards as it pressed her cheek, was covered with little
pearly dew-drops. The branch fell from her hand under my feet, her
sprightly form drooped, and the tones of her voice reminded me of the
time when she hung over her dying parent, as she said,--'pardon me,
stranger! I had forgotten you are not of my father's land. This tree
covered my father's tent, sheltered us from the sun, and kept away the
flies, when we slept in the day. Our virgins wreathe it in their hair,
and, if they die, it is strewed over their graves.
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