“ ‘Ah! Sir,’ cried she, disengaging herself from his arms, ‘what sort of man are you? I shall be very cautious of ever venturing thus into lonesome places, where I have been taken so ill, and may die a hundred times for want of help.’

“Others knew his condition, pitied him, protested to him, that the tenderness they had conceived for him, should not change; and never saw him more.

“The miserable Hilas, with his graceful figure, and the most refined sentiments, gave great dissatisfaction to many ladies.”

“Then he was a fool,” interrupted the Sultan. “Why did he not address some of the vestals, of which our monasteries are full? They would be charmed with him, and he would infallibly receive his cure through a grate.”

“Prince,” replied Selim, “chronicles assure us, that he tried that method, and found by experience, that the sex of all conditions do not care to love to their certain loss.”