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126 him back. It is advice which he is not very willing to follow, until Thais herself entreats him to do something of the same kind. She has particular reasons at this moment for not wishing to offend the Captain. He has just made her a very handsome present,—a slave-girl of exceeding beauty. But this is not her value in her new owner's eyes. Thais discovers that this poor girl, whom the Captain has bought in Caria, and brought home with him, was a child whom her mother had brought up, and who had been to herself as a younger sister. The story was, however, that she had been originally stolen by pirates from the coast of Attica. Upon her mother's recent death, the brother of Thais, intent only upon gain, had sold this girl—well-educated and very beautiful—once more into slavery; and so she had come into the hands of Thraso. Thais—who, though a heartless flirt of the worst description, still has her good points—is anxious to rescue her old companion, and, if possible, to restore her to her friends, to whom she hopes she has already found some clue. She fears that if her military lover believes her to prefer Phædria—as she assures that young gentleman she really does—he will break his promise, and not give her this girl. Phædria, who has himself just sent her a present of a pair of Ethiopian slaves, consents, under many protests: he will not call again "for two whole days:" he will go into the country: but Parmeno tells him that he fully believes he "will walk back to town in his sleep." The impassioned words in which the lover takes his unwilling leave, begging Thais not to forget him when in the company of his rival, have always been greatly admired,