She led her friend away from the reception-room, upstairs, and showed her such another little window as that they both remembered, looking out on distant roofs. “I come and dream here sometimes as of old⁠—I, the mother of two children!” sighed Gulbeyzah. “There is a roof well fitted for a hopeless lover, but no one ever comes. Now thou knowest that I have not changed my foolish nature, although in motherhood I have acquired a soul.”

That the Turkish ladies rather wondered at her preference for Gulbeyzah and Bedr-ul-Budûr, two former slaves, made Barakah the more enamoured of their friendship. Muhammad was allowed to visit them, and play games with their children, a transcendent favour; and it was with a horror as of treason and of base ingratitude that she heard them, too, declare that he was sadly spoilt.

It was at the wedding-feast which Tâhir, the great singer, gave his daughter. The ladies of the grand harems flocked thither eagerly, for it was known that Tâhir would perform. The two Circassians found out Barakah amid the throng, and went and sat with her in a deserted corner. Muhammad had that day been playing with the children of Gulbeyzah’s house.