Formosanta. "I could not have imagined such an incident. What! has my cousin, who was too happy in paying her court to me, become a queen, and I am not yet married?" She was immediately conducted, by her desire, to the queen's tent.
Their unexpected meeting in such distant climes; the uncommon occurrences they mutually had to impart to each other, gave such charm to this interview as made them forget they never loved one another. They saw each other with transport; and a soft illusion supplied the place of real tenderness. They embraced with tears, and there was a cordiality and frankness on each side that could not have taken place in a palace.
Aldea remembered the phœnix and the waiting maid Irla. She presented her cousin with zibeline skins, who in return gave her diamonds. The war between the two kings was spoken of. They deplored the fate of soldiers who were forced into battle, the victims of the caprice of princes, when two honest men might, perhaps, settle the dispute in less than an hour, without a single throat being cut. But the principal topic was the handsome stranger, who had conquered lions, given the largest diamonds in the universe, written madrigals, and had now become the most miserable of men from believing the statements of a blackbird.
"He is my dear brother," said Aldea. "He is my lover," cried Formosanta. "You have doubtless seen him. Is he still here? For, cousin, as he
