had consented. For weeks before, the harem was filled with sewing, laces, and ribbons, and the wedding-day was specially hurried on to ensure my presence. When the day came I accompanied Husneya to the new house in which Rabah was to begin her married life. It was like most Turkish houses, built round a courtyard, with a door into the street, and a staircase leading up to a long corridor on the first floor, out of which opened three rooms. Before the other guests arrived, I lunched with Husneya and her friends, and the bride, dressed in a gown of rich white brocade. The middle room was set apart for the ceremony and in it a throne had been erected, covered with rich carpets on which, as the guests began to arrive, Rabah took her seat. The reception was held in the wide corridor, which was soon crammed with people, of course only women. One was chiefly impressed by the complete absence of any uniformity of dress; Husneya reigning like a queen over the ceremonies, was gorgeous in a European gown of white lace ordered from Beyrout, but while some of the ladies followed her example in varying degree, others wore the long flannel dressing-gowns which have taken the place of Turkish costume in the harem. A band of musicians, hidden behind a sheet, kept up their ceaseless din throughout the day, while sweets and coffee were handed round at intervals. The first break in the already rather trying monotony of the day was the arrival of the bride's brother and guardian, Assim Bey, a fat little man who stood in loco parentis. Though, on the occasion of a wedding, etiquette is admittedly lax, there was a flutter of excitement among the crowd of ladies at the first appearance of a man, and they all made a hurried movement to cover themselves, those who had them throwing light veils over their heads, my blue chiffon scarf serving to hide the blushes of three ladies who had omitted to provide for this emergency. Assim Bey came up the stairs, kissed the bride, tied a girdle loosely round her waist, hurled a handful of coins into the crowd of guests, and left as hastily as he came. Rabah sat down again, this time remaining with us in the corridor, and the weary waiting began again. It is generally de rigueur for the bride to remain silent with eyes downcast, but Rabah was not conventional and talked to her friends from time to time. Fresh guests arrived-portly Greek ladies dressed in the height of fashion, and the wives of one or two Armenian merchants-and the time passed slowly. Suddenly there was a loud knocking at the door below. The bride, gathering up her skirts, descended the stairs alone, opened the door to her future husband and led him upstairs;

he was a nice-looking well-brushed young man of about twenty-eight, and seemed quite overwhelmed with shyness while Rabah, who throughout maintained her air of rather amused superiority, steered him safely past the crowd of critical gazers into the throne-room, where they were to sit until the bridegroom could succeed in making the bride speak. All he said, we afterwards heard, was Lord! how awful is this ceremony!' in which sentiment Rabah, I suppose, hurriedly agreed; for in two minutes the bridegroom emerged and fled through the company, forgetting, in his terror, to throw the necessary handful of silver among them, and was half-way down the stairs before he could be brought back, more scarlet than ever, to perform this duty. After his departure, first to the mosque, then to a feast with his friends, we all trooped into the throne-room, where the bride, sitting on her throne, received our congratulations. These given, most of the guests left, only a few intimate friends, myself among them, remaining behind. It was now nearly seven. If the waiting had seemed long to me, what must have been the feelings of the bride, who had sat, stiffly upright in her chair, from noon till dusk, the observed of every eye! Supper was a welcome break; and after it, according to Scriptural precedent, while the bridegroom tarried we all slumbered and slept. One felt the full force and meaning of the Parable-the expectant waiting, the uncertainty, for at such an hour as we knew not the bridegroom was to come. The waiting was becoming well-nigh unendurable, one guest was crying with toothache, the bride (whose dress was far too tightly cut to be comfortable to one unused to Western fashions) was feeling a little sick, when at last, after several false alarms, about ten o'clock there was a rumour, 'Behold, the bridegroom cometh !' and a rush to the window. Yes, down the street was coming a procession of dark figures, dimly lit by one lantern. The bridegroom now bade his friends good-bye at the street door, and came upstairs alone, his footsteps resounding through the dark and now silent house. He crossed the landing, opened the door, and was in the presence of his bride. Through a crack in the door we watched her rise and greet him, then stand gravely looking down on her husband as he went through the necessary forms of prayer on the rug at her feet, first standing, then kneeling, then prostrating himself, this smart frock-coated gentleman. After he had drunk a cup of coffee he offered his arm to his bride, led her to the throne, and they both sat down. Rabah appeared to be chatting away gaily when I took my last peep, as free from embarrassment as though she were

a European hostess entertaining a young man-about-town; but I noticed that the bridegroom had not altogether lost his shyness, and from time to time feverishly mopped his perspiring brow.

Soon my araba (carriage) rumbled up to the door, and as I bade good-bye to Husneya-for I was spending the night with other friends-out rushed the bride to join in the farewells. This shocked even Husneya and she thrust her back to the astonished bridegroom.

A week later I was told that Rabah was very deeply in love. For love in Moslem countries comes after marriage, and it cannot come before. It is like this,' Rabah said to me when I next met her. Before he comes we may be afraid; but when we see him, we say to ourselves "He is good," and we love each other, and all goes well.' Certainly most of my friends were obviously happily married, and when all is said and done, if a woman has never seen more than one man, why should she not consider him a fairy prince, and, like Miranda, have no ambition to see a goodlier man'?

One hot spring day in the beginning of March, about three weeks after Rabah's wedding, we all drove out of the town to the vineyards, where irises and buttercups were bursting into flower, and my Turkish friends divested themselves joyfully of tcharchaffs and veils and gave themselves up to enjoying the freedom of the country. Under the cherry-trees in full blossom we shared a merry meal, each helping herself from the common dish in the middle. Larks were singing and the sky was blue and the whole air was full of the spring promise. But there was a touch of autumnal sadness in our hearts, for I was to leave the town the following day; and though we talked gaily of our next meeting, experience had taught me that such plans are apt to fail, the world and its circumstances conspiring to thwart them. Why do you go at all?' they said, stay the summer with us, and we will all come and live in the vineyards together.' Why indeed, my friends, why, when I have but arrived at the city, do I feel the irresistible call to depart?' It is the call of the Unknown, the feeling that,' however sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient the dwelling-place, we must not remain here.' Good-bye, Husneya, Rabah, Melek, Moussaffer, all you, my friends, you have been very dear to me! Do not forget us!' No, I promise, I shall never forget you, for I take my lovers on the road with me, for all that I leave them behind me,' and know the universe itself as a road for travelling souls.' Allah ismarladik !

R. U. HOWELL.

THE FATE OF AN OLD MASTER:

A COUNCIL SCHOOL IDYL.

I.

Of all the masters at Chignett Street School Mr. Salter was the oldest, the least successful, and the most unpopular. No one seemed to know exactly how long he had taught there, but none of the estimates were under twenty-five years. And now, among a young, vigorous staff, he seemed a kind of antediluvian survival, a man with whom his colleagues were as much out of touch and out of sympathy as he was with the boys.

It had not always been so. Thirty years before-for the highest estimate was less than the truth-he had come to the school a smart, strong young fellow with a London B.A. and a fair experience already. Life looked bright enough then, and he had not begun to repent that he had chosen schoolmastering as his profession.

Yet even in those early days there were signs, for seeing eyes, of what was to come. He was always a little rough and ill-groomed in appearance, and his way of speaking was apt to be short and brusque. If anything went wrong in the class, he soon grew fidgety and impatient, and his discipline was never anything to boast of. Then his interest in education was quite perfunctory, and the human boy, as such, had no attraction for him.

As time went by, his temper grew no sweeter, and the routine of school work that had been merely monotonous became almost intolerable. Outside the school walls life dealt with him not too gently, and in his home he found no balm for the worries of school. His one solace, his great amusement, was the pencil. Not that he had ever distinguished himself during his training in any of the educational varieties of art. Freehand,'' Model,' and all the rest, he had practised and taught them with fair success and perfect indifference. But for thumb-nail sketches, for hasty impressions, for grotesque caricatures, often ill-drawn but always full of life and 'go,' he had a talent not far removed from genius. Mr. Home, one of the former Chignett Street headmasters, had been delighted with some of these sketches and had urged him to try to make a little

money by them. Fired with a new hope Mr. Salter had made several attempts, but in his ignorance of the market for such work he sent to the wrong places, and a few rebuffs quenched his ambitions and left him several degrees more soured than before. Still, those were what he afterwards came to look back upon as his halcyon days, for the knowledge that the headmaster appreciated his talent was a wonderful stimulus and consolation. Mr. Home, of course, was quite aware of his assistant's shortcomings as a teacher, but he went far out of his way to help him and cover his failings. It was when the kindly, easy-going headmaster was transferred to another school that Mr. Salter's evil days began. Mr. Worth, his successor, was a man of a very different type-keen, firm, energetic, with a fixed determination to work up Chignett Street to the plane of the Scholarship school. At the same time, he was neither unjust nor unkind, and when he saw how the land lay, he tried hard by friendly advice and persuasion to effect an improvement. Unfortunately, Mr. Salter met every such attempt by references to what Mr. Home used to wish, and say, and do, and when the new master was at last goaded into reminding him that a change of men often involved other changes too, the assistant resented the remark as an implied censure on his former chief. Changes were made in the staff, and the new masters were young men fresh from college. Gradually Mr. Salter drifted down to the lowest standards, where Mr. Worth thought he could do least harm. Then Mr. Westondale, the Government Inspector, after many hints and at least one warning, felt constrained to mention Mr. Salter's class as the exception to the otherwise excellent progress being made at Chignett Street. And now another visit was nearly due, and there had been no improvement. Worse still, Mr. Westondale had retired, and a new Inspector had taken his place, a young man with all the newest ideas buzzing in his bonnet. A second bad report would mean either Mr. Salter's removal to another school or-more probably— his being placed on the list of supply teachers. The headmaster was troubled in mind and heart. The one told him that the bad report would be an excellent thing for the school in general and for Standard II. in particular. The other asked him what chance such a man as Mr. Salter would have, at his age, under new and more difficult conditions. It reminded him, too, that the unfortunate master was rapidly approaching the age for compulsory retirement. On the whole, he looked forward with fear rather than with hope to the new Inspector's appearance.