well accustomed to admiration.

"The boy sees the resemblance, I'm sure."

"We have both dark heads and we are both tall," Margaret said
laughingly. "But there the likeness ends." She looked at Hadassah's
eyes as she spoke and wished that she could believe that she was in the
least like her. She had never seen such a beautiful expression in any
woman's eyes before. Was she really the Syrian girl whom Michael
Ireton had dared to marry?

"Let us sit down," Hadassah said. "But before we begin our talk, I
must send Michael to the nursery. I am really so foolish about him--I
wanted you to see him." She rang the bell and a pretty Coptic girl in
native dress came into the room; the boy went on with her without
demur. The girl had looked at Margaret with big brown eyes; they
carried her mind back to the portraits of Egyptian women painted in
Roman times on the walls of tombs.

"What a good little chap!" Margaret said. "I'm sure he wanted to stay
with you. How marked the Coptic type is!--they are the true
descendants of the ancient Egyptians, aren't they? He looked so fair
beside her."

"Dear little son! He will be perfectly happy with her. He loves
everybody and everything. I sometimes wonder if it means a lack of
character. He rarely cries, and he sings baby-songs to himself all day
long."

"What a darling!" Margaret said. "And how fair!"

"Yes," Hadassah said, "quite English." The words were spoken without
malice, but they brought the colour to Margaret's cheeks. Hadassah saw
it, and said laughingly, "I was granted my wish--I wanted to have a boy
as like my husband as possible. He wanted a girl, I think."

Margaret laid her hand on Hadassah's arm. "Did you mind me writing?"
she said. "I hope you didn't think it very odd?" Her voice broke. "I
wanted your advice. I knew you and your husband could help me."

"Dear Miss Lampton," Hadassah said, "I'm so glad you wrote, and of
course I understood. It's worth while to have suffered oneself, so as
to be able to understand and help others in their suffering."

Margaret knew all that the words implied, but with her habitual
reserve, she answered as though Hadassah had referred to her cousin's
death. The Nationalist plot in which he was implicated had added to
the horror which British society in Cairo had openly expressed at
Michael Ireton's marriage with a Syrian, who was a cousin of the
ill-advised youth.

"Michael told me something of the trage