every month she reads the two magazines al-Hilal and al-Adab. She inclines toward an appreciation of art and music, reading the lives of the great musicians and liking to listen to classical Western music. Her merry nature also inclines her to dancing, and she usually dances with her colleagues at their own club, which lies within the hospital itself.

She is likewise fond of sports: she plays tennis, makes long excursions by bicycle with her companions, and has a pas-sion for hunting. When Dr. Robertson, the director of the hospital, forbade her to shoot birds inside the hospital grounds, she took to carrying her rifle on holidays and roaming the fields nearby.

Najla says that her favorite

Najla with a group of members of the hospital family. Some of the male nurses appear — in the center Dr. Avzian, and at his side the head of the nurses.

hobby is tending flower plant-ings and raising poultry. Her absorption in her work, however, does not allow her to pursue it these days.

The study of the art of nursing at the Asfuriyeh hospital is free of charge, and the administration gives each student nurse, in addition to providing her keep, a monthly salary of 35 Lebanese lira. Najla spends this sum on the purchase of a few small luxuries, on books, and on the cost of cinema tickets and excursions. And since the amount is modest, she takes from her father the price of any dress she buys.

I asked her whether she longed to wear a variety of clothes instead of her daily white dress, and she assured me that the two are all the same to her. It appears that Najla belongs to that small class of ladies who attach no importance whatever to their adornment: she prefers wearing simple, clean clothes — or even making do with a pair of men's trousers — to decking herself out in an ornamented silk gown. She always shies away from taking up sewing and embroidery, and she prefers to spend her money on the purchase of books, tennis balls, and hunting

cartridges rather than on articles of adornment.

When I asked her about her plans for the future, she said: "I love the nursing profession, and I count it the most honorable calling for a girl after motherhood. The hospital administration has offered me a journey to England next year to specialize in my branch of study, and it will provide all my traveling expenses. Of course my father will not accept my plan to travel, but I shall persuade him as I persuaded him before about my coming here. There is no doubt that going abroad will help me to see the world and to gain further study and training in the field of my profession. After that I shall return to my country to practice my work as it should be practiced."

As for her opinion of marriage, she expressed it by saying that she is not thinking of it now — then she added that the reason for that may go back to her not yet having met the young man of her dreams.

I asked her whether she would practice her profession after marriage, and she affirmed it, saying: "Of course — because my profession is an honorable one, and humanity needs it, exactly as it needs motherhood!"

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