at the top
of its flounce, and the simple pretty little stays had to be examined
with keen interest. Nothing like these things had ever been seen by
mistress or servants, except in occasional peeps through shuttered
carriage windows when passing French shops: for Lella M'Barka Bent
Djellab, daughter of Princes of Touggourt, was what young Arabs call
"vieux turban." She was old-fashioned in her ideas, would have no
European furniture or decorations, and until to-night had never
consented to know a Roumia, much less receive one into her house. She
had felt that she was making a great concession in granting her cousin's
request, but she had forgotten her sense of condescension in
entertaining an unveiled girl, a Christian, now that she saw what the
girl was like. She was too old and lonely to be jealous of Victoria's
beauty; and as Si Maieddine, her favourite cousin, deigned to admire
this young foreigner, Lella M'Barka took an unselfish pride in each of
the American girl's charms.

When she was dressed to all outward appearances precisely like the
daughter of a high-born Arab family, Fafann brought a mirror framed in
mother-o'-pearl, and Victoria could not help admiring herself a little.
She wished half unconsciously that Stephen Knight could see her, with
hair looped in two great shining braids on either side her face, under
the sequined chechia of sapphire velvet; and then she was ashamed of her
own vanity.

Having been dressed, she was obliged to prove, before the three women
would be satisfied, that she understood how each garment ought to be
arranged; and later she had to try on a new gandourah, with a white
burnouse such as women wear, and the haick she had worn in coming to the
house. Hsina would help her in the morning, she was told, but it would
be better that she should know how to do things properly for herself,
since only Fafann would be with them on the journey, and she might
sometimes be busy with Lella M'Barka when Victoria was dressing.

The excitement of adorning the beautiful doll had tired the invalid. The
dark lines under her eyes were very blue, and the flesh of her face
seemed to hang loose, making her look piteously haggard. She offered but
feeble objections when her guest proposed to say good night, and after a
few more compliments and blessings, Victoria was able to slip away,
escorted by the negress.

The room where she was to sleep was on another side of the court from
that of Lella M'Bark