sat and beamed, and they kept calling for
somebody.

A plump dark-eyed girl came in, the first wife's daughter. She spoke
Serb, and interpreted for the wives.

They wanted to know everything, but knew so little that they could grasp
nothing.

Where had Jo come from? She tried London, Paris; no use, they had never
heard of them--two weeks on the sea--they didn't know what the sea was,
nor ships nor boats. They had never left Ipek and only knew the little
curly river.

The girl said that "devoikas" did not learn to read and write. That was
for the men.

Jo finally explained that she had ridden on horseback from Plevlie. Then
they gasped--

"How far you have travelled! What a wonderful life, and does your
husband let you speak to other men?"

She asked them what they did.

"Nothing." "Sewing?" "A little," they owned with elegant ease.

The chief wife had recently lost one of her children, but did not seem
to know of what it had died.

"I should think a woman doctor would be useful here," said Jo.

They screamed with laughter. "How funny! Why, she would be _so_ thick!"
they said, stretching their arms as wide as they could.

They kept inventing pretexts for keeping her, but when she rose to go
for the third time they regretfully bade her farewell, the daughter took
both her hands and imprinted a smacking kiss.

Outside the healthy-looking wife emerged from the basket hut, where she
was evidently preparing some delicacy to bring up, and showed signs of
deep disappointment.

The responsible-looking man who let her out also expressed his regrets
that she had not stayed longer. In the great street doorway was seated
the husband, but no Jan, no Pavlovitch, so Jo sat with him, somewhat
embarrassed, eating bits of apple which he peeled for her.

In the afternoon we went to bid farewell to the Archbishop and took
Pavlovitch with us. The Archbishop gave Pavlovitch a poor welcome until
he heard his name.

"Are _you_ Nikola Pavlovitch, of whom I have heard so much from the
Governor? I thought you were only a common soldier. I have met you at
last."

We felt we were really consorting with the great.

Jo related her harem experiences, and he told of the attempts of the
young Turks in Constantinople to abolish the veil, of how he had
assisted at small dinner parties where the ladies had discarded their
veils, and of the ferocity with which the priests and leaders had fought
and quashed the movement.

One lady