ndeed, she had seen better
days. And 'tis sorrow, forestalling Time, which furrows her cheeks and
robs her black eyes of their lustre and spark.

"She had once cattle, and a beit of her own, and rugs, too, and jars
full of provision. But now she is a tenant. And her husband, ever
since he emigrated to America, did not send a single piaster or even
write a letter. From necessity she becomes a prey of usurers; for
those Lebanon Moths, of which we saw a specimen in the village of
bells and potteries, fall mostly in the wardrobe of women. They are
locusts rather, who visit only the wheat fields of the poor. Her home
was mortgaged to one such, and failing to meet her obligation, the
mortgage is closed and he takes possession. Soon after she is evicted,
her son, the first-born, a youth of much promise, dies.

"'He could read and write, my son,' quoth she, sobbing; 'of a sharp
wit he was, and very assiduous in his studies. Once he accompanied the
priest of the village on a visit to the Patriarch, and read there a
eulogium of his own composition, for which he received a silver medal.
The Patriarch then sent him to a Seminary; he was to become a priest,
my son. He wrote a beautiful hand--both Arabic and French; he was of a
fine wit, sharp, quick, brilliant. Ah, me, but those who are of such
minds never live!'

"She then tells me how they lost their last head of cattle. An
excellent sheep it was; which one night they forgot outside; and the
wolf, visiting the village, sees it tied to the mulberry, howls for
joy, and carries it off. And thus Death robs the poor woman of her
son; America, of her husband; the Shylock of the village, of her home;
and the wolf, of her last head of cattle. And this were enough to age
even a Spartan woman. Late in the evening, after she had related at
length of her sorrows, three mattresses--all she had--are laid on the
straw mat near each other, and the little girl had to sleep with her
mother.

"Early in the morning I bid them farewell, and pass on my way to
Amsheet, where Henriette Renan, the sister of Ernest, is buried. An
hour's walk, and the incarcerated wadi and its folk lie concealed
behind. I breathe again the open air of the mountain expanse; I behold
again the emerald stretch of water on the horizon, where the baggalas
and saics, from this distance, seem like doves basking in the morning
sun. I cross the last rill, mount the last hilltop on my journey, and
lo, at the foot of the gently s