arest friend and comrade with you; the joy of
nursing and helping to restore to health and happiness the woman
dearest to your heart; the joy of a Love budding in beauty and
profusion; and--this, the rarest and sublimest for Khalid--the joy of
worshipping at the cradle--of fondling, caressing, and bringing up one
of the brightest, sweetest, loveliest of babes.

Najib is his name--it were cruel to neutralise such a prodigy--and
he is just learning to walk and lisp. Khalid teaches him the first
step and the first monosyllable, receiving in return the first
kiss which his infant lips could voice. With what joy Najib makes his
first ten steps! With what zest would he practise on the soft sands,
laughing as he falls, and rising to try again. And thus, does he
quickly, wonderfully develop, unfolding in the little circle of his
caressers--in his mother's lap, in Shakib's arms, on Khalid's back,
on Mrs. Gotfry's knee--the irresistible charm of his precocious
spirit.

In two months of desert life, Najib could run on the sands and sit
down when tired to rest; in two months he could imitate in voice
and gesture whatever he heard or saw: the donkey's bray, and with a
tilt of the head like him; the cry of the cock; the shrill whistle
of the train; and the howling of donkey boys. His keen sense of
discrimination in sounds is incredible. And one day, seeing a
Mohammedan spreading his rug to pray, he begins to kneel and kiss the
ground in imitation of him. He even went into the tent and brought
Khalid's jubbah to spread it on the sand likewise for that purpose.
So sensitive to outside impressions is this child that he quickly
responds to the least suggestion and with the least effort. Early
in the morning, when the chill of night is still on the sands, he
toddles into Khalid's tent cooing and warbling his joy. A walking
jasmine flower, a singing ray of sunshine, Khalid calls him. And the
mother, on seeing her child thus develop, begins to recuperate. In
this little garden of happiness, her hope begins to blossom.

But Khalid would like to know why Najib, on coming into his tent in
the morning and seeing him naked, always pointed with his little
finger and with questioning smile, to what protruded under the navel.
The like questions Khalid puts with the ease and freedom of a child.
And writes full pages about them, too, in which he only succeeds in
bamboozling himself and us. For how can we account for everything a
child does? Even