"
So saying, he ordered that a tower of the Alhambra should be
prepared for their reception, and departed at the head of his guards
for the fortress of Salobrena, to conduct them home in person.
About three years had elapsed since Mohamed had beheld his
daughters, and he could scarcely credit his eyes at the wonderful
change which that small space of time had made in their appearance.
During the interval, they had passed that wondrous boundary line in
female life which separates the crude, unformed, and thoughtless
girl from the blooming, blushing, meditative woman. It is like passing
from the flat, bleak, uninteresting plains of La Mancha to the
voluptuous valleys and swelling hills of Andalusia.
Zayda was tall and finely formed, with a lofty demeanor and a
penetrating eye. She entered with a stately and decided step, and made
a profound reverence to Mohamed, treating him more as her sovereign
than her father. Zorayda was of the middle height, with an alluring
look and swimming gait, and a sparkling beauty, heightened by the
assistance of the toilette. She approached her father with a smile,
kissed his hand, and saluted him with several stanzas from a popular
Arabian poet, with which the monarch was delighted. Zorahayda was
shy and timid, smaller than her sisters, and with a beauty of that
tender beseeching kind which looks for fondness and protection. She
was little fitted to command, like her elder sister, or to dazzle like
the second, but was rather formed to creep to the bosom of manly
affection, to nestle within it, and be content.
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