“Prince,” returned Mirzoza, “you have a hundred times talk’d to me of your ministers as the honestest men in Congo. I have so often patiently heard the praises of your Seneschal, of the governors of your provinces, of your secretaries, of your treasurer, in a word, of all your officers, that I am able to repeat them by memory word for word. It is strange, that the object of your tenderness should be the only person excepted from the good opinion, which you have conceived of those who have the honor of being near your person.”

“And who told you that it is so?” replied the Sultan. “Be persuaded, madam, that the discourses, true or false, which I make on women, do by no means concern you, unless you think proper to represent the sex in general.”

“I should not advise madam to that,” added Selim, who was present at this conversation. “She would gain nothing by it but defects.”