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attention was instantly drawn towards the inhabitant of this wretched
abode. It was a female. She sat at the table; one small hand shaded her
eyes from the candle; the other held a pencil; her looks were fixed on a
drawing before her, which Raymond recognized as the design presented to
him. Her whole appearance awakened his deepest interest. Her dark hair was
braided and twined in thick knots like the head-dress of a Grecian statue;
her garb was mean, but her attitude might have been selected as a model of
grace. Raymond had a confused remembrance that he had seen such a form
before; he walked across the room; she did not raise her eyes, merely
asking in Romaic, who is there? "A friend," replied Raymond in the same
dialect. She looked up wondering, and he saw that it was Evadne Zaimi.
Evadne, once the idol of Adrian's affections; and who, for the sake of her
present visitor, had disdained the noble youth, and then, neglected by him
she loved, with crushed hopes and a stinging sense of misery, had returned
to her native Greece. What revolution of fortune could have brought her to
England, and housed her thus?
Raymond recognized her; and his manner changed from polite beneficence to
the warmest protestations of kindness and sympathy. The sight of her, in
her present situation, passed like an arrow into his soul. He sat by her,
he took her hand, and said a thousand things which breathed the deepest
spirit of compassion and affection. Evadne did not answer; her large dark
eyes were cast down, at length a tear glimmered on the lashes. "Thus," she
cried, "kindness can do, what no want, no misery ever effected; I weep."
She shed indeed many tears; her head sunk unconsciously on the shoulder of
Raymond; he held her hand: he kissed her sunken tear-stained cheek. He told
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