d a pair of yellow
shoes--he asked for yellow. He said he was homesick for a bit of
sunshine, and our so somber garb made him heart-sad. But I would never
have dismissed a cook like Hannah for him.

"I shall have to let her go," Tish said. "He is Oriental and passionate.
He has said he will kill her--and he'll do it. They hold life very
lightly."

"Humph!" I said. "Very well, Tish, that holding life lightly isn't a
Christian trait. It's Mohammedan--every Mohammedan wants to die and go
to his heaven, which is a sort of sublimated harem. The boy's probably a
Christian by training, but he's a Mohammedan by blood."

Aggie thought my remark immoral and said so. And just then Hannah solved
her own problem by stalking into the room with her things on and a
suitcase in her hand.

"I'm leaving, Miss Tish!" she said with her eye-rims red. "God knows I
never expected to be put out of this place by a dirty dago! You'll find
your woolen stockings on the stretchers, and you've got an appointment
with the dentist tomorrow morning at ten. And when that little
blackguard has sucked you dry, and you want him killed to get rid of
him, you'll find me at my sister's."

She picked up her suitcase and Tish flung open the door. "You're a
hard-hearted woman, Hannah Mackintyre!" Tish snapped. "Your sister can't
keep you. You'll have to work."

Hannah turned in the doorway and sneered at the three of us.

"Oh, no!" she said. "I'm going to hunt up three soft-headed old maids
and learn to kiss their hands and tell 'em I have nobody but them and
God!"

She slammed out at that, leaving us in a state of natural irritation.
But our rage soon faded. Tufik was not in the parlor; and Tish,
tiptoeing back, reported that he was in the kitchen and was mixing up
something in a bowl.

"He's a dear boy!" she said. "He feels responsible for Hannah's leaving
and he's getting luncheon! Hannah is a wicked and uncharitable woman!"

"Man's inhumanity to man,
Makes countless thousands mourn!"

quoted Aggie softly. From the kitchen came the rhythmic beating of a
wooden spoon against the side of a bowl; a melancholy chant--quite
archaic, as Tish said--kept time with the spoon, and later a smell of
baking flour and the clatter of dishes told us that our meal was
progressing.

"'The Syrians,'" read Tish out of her book, "'are a peaceful and
pastoral people. They have not changed materially in nineteen centuries,
and the traveler in their country finds