an quarter of Djianghir
near, on the heights of Taxim, where were many shops, and thence round
the brow of the hill to the great French Embassy-house, overlooking
Foundoucli and the sea, both of us having large Persian carpet-bags, and
all in the air of that wilderness of ruin that morning a sweet, strong,
permanent odour of maple-blossom.

We met toward evening, she quivering under such a load, that I would not
let her carry it, but abandoned my day's labour, which was lighter, and
took hers, which was quite enough: we went back Westward, seeking all
the while some shelter from the saturating night-dews of this place: and
nothing could we find, till we came again, quite late, to her broken
funeral-kiosk at the entrance to the immense cemetery-avenue of Eyoub.
There without a word I left her among the shattered catafalques, for I
was weary; but having gone some distance, turned back, thinking that I
might take some more raisins from the bag; and after getting them, said
to her, shaking her little hand where she sat under the roof-shadow on a
stone:

'Good-night, Clodagh.'

She did not answer promptly: and her answer, to my surprise, was a
protest against her name: for a rather sulky, yet gentle, voice came
from the darkness, saying:

'I am _not_ a Poisoner!'

'Well,' said I, 'all right: tell me whatever you like that I should call
you, and henceforth I will call you that.'

'Call me Eve,' says she.

'Well, no,' said I, 'not Eve, anything but that: for _my_ name is Adam,
and if I called you Eve, that would be simply absurd, and we do not want
to be ridiculous in each other's eyes. But I will call you anything else
that you like.'

'Call me Leda,' says she.

'And why Leda?' said I.

'Because Leda sounds something like Clodagh,' says she, 'and you are
al-leady in the habit of calling me Clodagh; and I saw the name Leda in
a book, and liked it: but Clodagh is most hollible, most bitterly
hollible!'

'Well, then,' said I, 'Leda it shall be, and I shan't forget, for I like
it, too, and it suits you, and you ought to have a name beginning with
an "L." Good-night, my dear, sleep well, and dream, dream.'

'And to you, too, my God give dleams of peace and pleasantness,' says
she; and I went.

And it was only when I had lain myself upon leaves for my bed, my head
on my caftan, a rill for my lullaby, and two stars, which alone I could
see out of the heavenful, for my watch-lights; and only when my eyes
were alrea