And Dr. Baz related, saying: I heard that May was ill in the house of her relative Dr. Joseph Ziadeh, so I went at once to visit her. They said that she was on strike against food, and that she was on strike against speech as well; but with me she talked pleasantly — I remember that the talk turned on cigarettes and the pleasure of smoking — for I saw before her on the table a box full of cigarette stubs.

And I remember that I offered her with my own hand a glass of orange juice, and she drank it. It was a wonderful hour that I spent at May's side — God rest her soul.

This is part of the report drawn up by General Martin after his visit to May:

“I have found in her condition an improvement to a degree that may be called recovery.”

Miss May lives an ordinary life in her home; she attends to household matters, such as the buying of provisions, and she keeps her accounts with precise care. And I find her expenses in exact arithmetical proportion to her income. She is engaged in literary work and is preparing a study on the Phoenicians in the poems of Homer. Her papers of this kind are

skillfully knit, and she receives her friends.

The atmosphere in which she lives is natural, and Miss May takes part in these conversations with quickness of wit, in elegant French.

Her temper is alert and cheerful; but the young lady complains of the smallness of her income resulting from the interdiction suit, since she cannot withdraw her money from the banks.

And her pain was deep on reading the journalistic ventures that circulated, without the least reserve, around her person. Her bodily health is excellent, and her activity is natural. I consider her capable of a settled life abroad, and I find her fit to manage her affairs and her property herself.

A slave woman raises none but slaves.

The platform brought me together with her for the first time in Cairo in the year 1918. The subject of her address was “Universal Brotherhood,” and mine was “Pain”; and behold, we met in idea and in aim, though we differed in title. Dr. Sarruf, one of the proprietors of al-Muqtataf, was among the listeners, and he admired her intensely and said to me: I have come to love this girl like my own daughters, and I shall write myself about this gathering in tomorrow's “Muqattam.”

Then I visited her at her home, which was a place of pilgrimage for the people of letters and merit; the most famous men of Cairo, writers and politicians, resorted to it, and the conversation there took up all manner of subjects—literature, learning, and art. Nor was May, as a

conversationalist, any less enchanting than as an orator; indeed in her conversation she was perhaps unique of her kind. She spoke with ease and in correct language, while over her eyes and on her lips there spread a delicate cloud of light betraying the sweetness behind it, the self-confidence, the faith, and the breadth of spirit; and you would see whoever listened to her held fast by that melody coming from the depths, carrying the signs of eloquence to ears and minds. And she might pass in conversation from Arabic to other tongues, for she was versed in many languages, besides what she knew of the fine arts, such as painting and music; so her gatherings knew no tedium, and the visitor left her presence as though leaving a banquet at which he had tasted the finest perfumes and the finest wines.

The letters and articles that May's skill embroidered in the various newspapers and magazines, and her published works of literature and criticism, show that she was a writer of fastidious refinement, just as she was a talker and an orator.

I learned of her coming to Beirut from a friend of mine, and how great were my sorrow and my astonishment when I entered her room and saw her in bed, utterly changed. I would speak to her, and she would smile at me without uttering a syllable, and all my attempts to draw her into talk went for nothing. So I left after half an hour, having made certain that what I had seen was a ghost bearing the name of May, and that life had begun to seep out of this chosen vessel. And when news later came to me of her improvement and her return to the normal state, fear haunted me that this improvement might be a blaze of straw, quick to fade and go out.

May had lived in a perfumed air of love and affection, with which she

carried the weight of life without weariness; and before she reached the end of the road she lost all that had been nourishment for her heart. So her nerves collapsed, and she lost her guide, and tedium took hold of her, and despair overcame hope within her, weakened her powers, and struck her down.

May died two years before her death, and that interval between the two deaths was enough for people to forget her, so that when she gave up the spirit she found around her no friend or companion. And that temple … its walls with pictures and books, and as … in it the greatest of the people, fate closed … the spider its expanses; so she passed days in the hospital

Mrs. Florine Ford Karam

sobriety and gravity.

I never saw her after that; but the features of that tormented face are still before my eyes.

That was, for me, ... to my heart, and it had almost become a ... for May at that time was ... every circle, and above all ... in which I lived..

May is stricken. No, May is wrong... people were saying.. and there grew ... that I might see this stricken, wronged woman ... in Freikeh, in the house of the Rih...

Not a ... of that day escaped me, ... I gazed at her long, stared ... the features of her face, and I saw nothing ou... — indeed there was a deep cast ... the lines of her face — no, it sinks ... even her clothes.

And she spoke little, and ... entered into talk of her own accord despite the att...