ly from riding too far in the sun that morning.

Alone in her room the young woman heard the officer's inquiry and
her mother's excuses, for the bamboo walls of a Philippine house let
conversation be heard from one end of the house to the other. Crushing
in both hands the handkerchief which she had been dipping into iced
water to bind about her forehead, she flung it impatiently from her,
thinking bitterly to herself as she did so how foolish it was to bind
up one's head when it was really one's heart that was aching.

For alone in her darkened room that afternoon, the young woman had
acknowledged to herself--what perhaps up to that time had been almost
as much of a problem to her as to other people--which one of the young
officers she really cared for. She knew now that the love of Lieutenant
Day meant everything to her, and the love of the other man nothing.

And it was Lieutenant Day's picture which she had seen the Visayan
woman kiss.

One day General Allenthorne sat on the verandah of his house with
an American acquaintance, the agent of a business firm, who had been
sent to the Philippine Islands to see what opportunities there might
be for trade there.

Some women walked along the street below the house, carrying heavy
water jars poised on their heads.

"Queer country, isn't it?" said the visitor.

"Yes," said the General. "A body never knows what may happen to
him. Probably those women we see down there are slaves. Seeing them
made me think of a funny thing I heard of today, which happened to
one of my men a little while ago.

"A young officer hired a native man for a servant. One day the fellow
came to the Lieutenant in a great state of mind, begging the officer
to help him. It seemed he had a sweetheart who was a Visayan slave
girl owned by a Moro. The man who owned the girl was going to leave
the city and take all his property, including this slave girl, with
him. Pedro--that was the officer's boy--wanted 'the great American
Senor' to say she should not go. Some of the natives seem to have
the most wonderful confidence in the power of the Americans to do
anything and everything.

"The officer told his boy he had no power to prevent the man's moving
and taking his property with him; but he happened to ask how much
the girl was worth. How much do you think the fellow said? Fifteen
dollars! And he went on to explain that this was an unusually high
price, he knew, but that this girl was young and hands