Sometimes he would laugh, and say: "Am I not a lucky dog?
I don't envy the Grand Bashaw his Circassian beauties.

He'd give his biggest diamond for such a dancer as Floracita; and what is his Flower of the World compared to my Rosamunda ?" Floracita, whose warm heart always met affection as swiftly as one drop of quicksilver runs to another, became almost as much attached to him as she was to Rosa.

"How kind Gerald is to me!" she would say to Tulee.

"Papa used to wish we had a brother; but I didn't care for one then, because he was just as good for a playmate.

But now it _is_ pleasant to have a brother." To Rosa, also, it was gratifying to have his love for her overflow upon what was dearest to her; and she would give him one of her sweetest smiles when he called her sister "Mignonne" or "Querida." To both of them the lonely island came to seem like a happy home.
Floracita was not so wildly frolicsome as she was before those stunning blows fell upon her young life; but the natural buoyancy of her spirits began to return.