."

He made her comfortable, with cushions, on the couch, then seating
himself cross-legged on the floor by her side--the posture was a
favorite one of his, and had been acquired, long ago, during his
residence in the East--he bade her go on.

"I was born," she began, "in a little village at the foot of Lebanon,
but when I was only six years old my father got work in the
neighbourhood of Trebizond, and we migrated thither. Within a week of
our arrival, at our new home, I became a scholar in a lady Missionary's
class of native children, where, among other things, I learned English.
When I was eleven, my father and mother died of small-pox, and I became
a little waiting-maid to my dear American missionary teacher. Miss
Roosevelly, living in the house, with her, of course.

"My brother Hassan, was eight years older than me, and he lived with a
schoolmaster, in Constantinople. I had also a dear old grandmother, my
mother's mother, who lived about four miles from the tiny mission where
I lived, and, now and again, I was allowed to visit grandmother for two
or three days at a time.

"My life was an even, regular, but never monotonous one, for I was
always busy. Then, a year or more ago, there came an awful event in my
life. I was sixteen, and I had gone to spend a few days with dear old
grandmother, and----"

There came the faintest click in her voice, and she glanced toward the
lemonade caraffe. His watching eyes saw her need, and he reached the
caraffe and a glass, and poured out a draught. She took a big gulp,
then sipped more slowly. And while she drank, he watched her and he
realized more than ever, how true and sweet as well as how beautiful
her face was.

Young as she was, in development she was a woman, as is invariably the
case of maidens born under tropical skies. It is true that her beauty
was, as yet, of the tender, budding type, but it was the full bursting
bud of the queen of flowers, and already foreshadowed the wondrous
brilliance of the full-blown blossom.

Eastern though she was, she had blue eyes--forget-me-not-blue--though
the long silken eye-lashes, and the thin, arched, pencilled-like
eye-brows were raven black. When she had finished her lemonade, and
had replaced the glass on the table, she went on with her story.

"It was the first evening of my home-coming to dear grandmother. The
sun was setting, and the roseate gold of his departing glory was
illuminating everything. How lovely