girls on whom such an
overflow of high spirits and light-heartedness was bestowed.

A large party had collected under the wide palm-thatched roof of the
dyeing shed-pretty and ugly, brown and fair, tall and short; some upright
and some bent by toil at the loom from early youth, but all young; not
one more than eighteen years old. Slaves were capital, bearing interest
in the form of work and of children. Every slave girl was married to a
slave as soon as she was old enough. Girls and married women alike were
employed in the weaving shop, but the married ones slept in separate
quarters with their husbands and children, while the maids passed the
night in large sleeping-barracks adjoining the worksheds. They were now
enjoying the evening respite and had gathered in two groups. One party
were watching an Egyptian girl who was scribbling sketches on a tablet;
the others were amusing themselves with a simple game. This consisted in
each one in turn flinging her shoe over her head. If it flew beyond a
chalk-line to which she turned her back she was destined soon to marry
the man she loved; if it fell between her and the mark she must yet have
patience, or would be united to a companion she did not care for.

The girl who was drawing, and round whom at least twenty others were
crowded, was a designer of patterns for weaving; she had too the gift
which had characterized her heathen ancestors, of representing faces in
profile, with a few simple lines, in such a way that, though often
comically distorted, they were easily recognizable. She was executing
these works of art on a wax tablet with a copper stylus, and the others
were to guess for whom they were meant.

One girl only sat by herself by the furthest post of the shed, and gazed
silently into her lap.

Paula looked on and could understand everything that was going forward,
though no coherent sentence was uttered and there was nothing to be heard
but laughter--loud, hearty, irresistible mirth. When a girl threw the
shoe far enough the youthful crowd laughed with all their might, each one
shouting the name of some one who was to marry her successful companion;
if the shoe fell within the line they laughed even louder than before,
and called out the names of all the oldest and dirtiest slaves. A dusky
Syrian had failed to hit the mark, but she boldly seized the chalk and
drew a fresh line between herself and the shoe so that it lay beyond, at
any rate; and their merriment r