to their bosoms maidens that bloomed like peaches just
beginning to ripen against a wall; and his friends, who knew he would give
a magnificent marriage-feast, urged him to do likewise. Once he looked
with pleasure on a young person of not too tender years, whose parents
purposely presented her to him; but having asked her in a whisper whether
she would like to marry a withered old gentleman like himself, she frankly
confessed a preference for his handsome young clerk, Harma, who earned a
hundred piastres a month. Fadlallah laughed philosophically, and took care
that the young couple should be married under happy auspices.

One day he was proceeding along the street gravely and slowly--surrounded
by a number of merchants proud to walk by his side, and followed by two or
three young men, who pressed near in order to be thought of the company,
and thus establish their credit--when an old woman espying him, began to
cry out, "Yeh! yeh! this is the man who has no wife and no child--this is
the man who is going to die and leave his fortune to be robbed by his
servants or confiscated by the governor! And yet, he has a sagacious
nose"--(the Orientals have observed that there is wisdom in a nose)--"and a
beard as long as my back! Yeh! yeh! what a wonderful sight to see!"

Fadlallah Dahan stopped, and retorted, smiling: "Yeh! yeh! this is the
woman that blames an old man for not marrying a young wife. Yeh! yeh! what
a wonderful sight to see!"

Then the woman replied, "O my lord, every pig's tail curls not in the same
direction, nor does every maiden admire the passing quality of youth. If
thou wilt, I will bestow on thee a wife, who will love thee as thou lovest
thyself, and serve thee as the angels serve Allah. She is more beautiful
than any of the daughters of Beyrout, and her name is Selima, a name of
good augury."

The friends of Fadlallah laughed, as did the young men who followed in
their wake, and urged him to go and see this peerless beauty, if it were
only for a joke. Accordingly, he told the woman to lead the way. But she
said he must mount his mule, for they had to go some distance into the
country. He mounted, and, with a single servant, went forth from the
gates--the woman preceding--and rode until he reached a village in the
mountains. Here, in a poor little house, he found Selima; clothed in the
very commonest style, engaged in making divan cushions. She was a
marvellously beautiful girl, and the heart of the me