looked round to see if a
door had opened, he made such a draught. But you have some funny
expressions, Mr. Stephens!"

"What else strikes you as funny, Miss Sadie?"

"Well, when you sent me the temple ticket and the little map, you began
your letter, 'Enclosed, please find,' and then at the bottom, in
brackets, you had '2 enclo.'"

"That is the usual form in business."

"Yes, in business," said Sadie demurely, and there was a silence.

"There's one thing I wish," remarked Miss Adams, in the hard, metallic
voice with which she disguised her softness of heart, "and that is, that
I could see the Legislature of this country and lay a few cold-drawn
facts in front of them. I'd make a platform of my own, Mr. Stephens,
and run a party on my ticket. A Bill for the compulsory use of eyewash
would be one of my planks, and another would be for the abolition of
those Yashmak veil things which turn a woman into a bale of cotton goods
with a pair of eyes looking out of it."

"I never could think why they wore them," said Sadie; "until one day I
saw one with her veil lifted. Then I knew."

"They make me tired, those women," cried Miss Adams wrathfully.
"One might as well try to preach duty and decency and cleanliness to a
line of bolsters. Why, good land, it was only yesterday at Abou-Simbel,
Mr. Stephens, I was passing one of their houses--if you can call a
mud-pie like that a house--and I saw two of the children at the door
with the usual crust of flies round their eyes, and great holes in their
poor little blue gowns! So I got off my donkey, and I turned up my
sleeves, and I washed their faces well with my handkerchief, and sewed
up the rents--for in this country I would as soon think of going ashore
without my needle-case as without my white umbrella, Mr. Stephens.
Then as I warmed on the job I got into the room--such a room!--and I
packed the folks out of it, and I fairly did the chores as if I had been
the hired help. I've seen no more of that temple of Abou-Simbel than if
I had never left Boston; but, my sakes, I saw more dust and mess than
you would think they could crowd into a house the size of a Newport
bathing-hut. From the time I pinned up my skirt until I came out with
my face the colour of that smoke-stack, wasn't more than an hour, or
maybe an hour and a half, but I had that house as clean and fresh as a
new pine-wood box. I had a _New York Herald_ with me, and I lined their
shelf with paper for them.