giveness.

"Say thou art not badly hurt--say it, I implore thee. By my life, I
should die if I had injured thee."

Iskender did his best to personate the last agony, writhing and rolling
his eyes, and clutching at the air with palsied hands. In despair of
soothing one in that condition, she changed mood swiftly and became
defiant.

"No matter," she sneered. "Thou art not hurt to death; and by Allah
thou deservest any suffering in return for the shame and humiliation
thou hast put upon me. What was that Frank--curse his religion!--to
thee, that thou must go every hour only to watch the house where he lay
ill? He had cast thee off, when I came and comforted thee. Yet is he
dearer! O the disgrace to me to have offered my love and to be thus
rejected! Would to Allah I had never seen thy dirty, ugly, wicked--thy
accursed face! It is the face of a pig, of an afrit; so now thou
knowest! What had I ever done to harm thee that, after speaking to me
of love and asking for me, thou didst turn thy back and spurn me for
the sake of a vile foreigner who has blackened thy face and made of
thee a byword for infamy? I heard thee ask my father; and I heard his
answer. There was hope for thee. Why has thy mother never come to
talk with mine? By Allah, I will take that stone again and kill thee
with it; for it seems that I am nothing in thy eyes, O misbegotten!"

Iskender knew not how to answer, for her reproach was righteous; yet he
loved her dearly. He was released from this embarrassment by the
return of Mitri, who had been into the town to visit a sick man. He
had drawn quite near before the bickering pair perceived him. Nesibeh
made as if to fly indoors; but the priest called her back rather
sternly.

"Art afraid of me, thy father, child of mischief? By the Gospel thou
hast cause to fear, O shameless, O deceitful. But wait a minute, I
command thee, and hear what I have to say to this young man."

The girl obeyed demurely, standing by, with hands folded in the fall of
her white headveil while her father addressed Iskender.

"It is known, O my son, that I have conceived a fondness for thee; and
so it seems has this wild girl of mine. The mother of Nesibeh, too,
speaks well of thee, because thou dost run her errands, and art fond of
playing with the younger children--things which seem naught to me, but
please her greatly. I say not that I will not give Nesibeh to thee,
some day in the future, if thou walkest