ch Cassim told her would be
wonderful as some gorgeous dream of fairyland. He gave her quantities of
jewellery, and said they were nothing to what she should have when she
was in her own home with him. She should be covered from head to foot
with diamonds and pearls, rubies and emeralds, if she liked; and of
course she would like, for she loved jewels, poor darling."

"Why do you say 'poor?'" asked Stephen. "Are you going to tell me the
marriage wasn't a success?"

"I don't know," answered the girl. "I don't know any more about her than
if Cassim ben Halim had really carried my sister off to fairyland, and
shut the door behind them. You see, I was only eight years old. I
couldn't make my own life. After Saidee was married and taken to
Algiers, my stepmother began to imagine herself in love with an American
from Indiana, whom she met in Paris. He had an impressive sort of
manner, and made her think him rich and important. He was in business,
and had come over to rest, so he couldn't stay long abroad; and he urged
Mrs. Ray to go back to America on the same ship with him. Of course she
took me, and this Mr. Henry Potter told her about a boarding-school
where they taught quite little girls, not far from the town where he
lived. It had been a farmhouse once, and he said there were 'good
teachers and good air.' I can hear him saying it now. It was easy to
persuade her; and she engaged rooms at a hotel in the town near by,
which was called Potterston, after Mr. Potter's grandfather. By and by
they were married, but their marriage made no difference to me. It
wasn't a bad little old-fashioned school, and I was as happy as I could
be anywhere, parted from Saidee. There was an attic where I used to be
allowed to sit on Saturdays, and think thoughts, and write letters to my
sister; and there was one corner, where the sunlight came in through a
tiny window shaped like a crescent, without any glass, which I named
Algiers. I played that I went there to visit Saidee in the old Arab
palace she wrote me about. It was a splendid play--but I felt lonely
when I stopped playing it. I used to dance there, too, very softly in
stockinged feet, so nobody could hear--dances she and I made up together
out of stories she used to tell me. The Shadow Dance and the Statue
Dance which you saw, came out of those stories, and there are more you
didn't see, which I do sometimes--a butterfly dance, the dance of the
wheat, and two of the East, which were