whom death folded away three years ago, leaving behind him extensive commercial enterprises and projects drawn up and awaiting execution. And so Mrs. Shafiqa descended into the arena of men to fill her late husband's place, becoming thereby one of the few ladies in our country who conduct vast commercial dealings and practice the thorny, intricate language of figures; and in this she strives, with all the resolve and strength given her, to preserve that name which her husband left behind in the world of trade and finance...

We settled ourselves and plunged into talk... I congratulated her on the victory she had won in her election as a member of the board of directors of Intra Bank; and with abounding modesty she went on to tell me of the board's insistence upon electing her, and of her own reluctance — for no reason but her exhaustion by her commercial affairs on the one hand, and her absorption in her social activity on the other; for she is a member of the Lebanese Women's League, an administrative member of the Lebanese Red Cross society — to which she was lately re-elected — besides being honorary president of most of the Lebanese charitable associations, such as the Children's Hospital Society and the Child Care Society...

I asked her about the dispensary standing beside her house, whose fame has gone abroad through most of the poor and needy quarters. She told me that years ago, when she felt the number of the sick swelling year upon year, and their pressing need for free care, she undertook this project of hers, meeting in it every requirement of health, and gave it the name of her late husband, to keep his memory alive and as a charity for his soul... The dispensary receives the sick, grown and small alike, supplies them with the medicines they need, and is overseen by a picked company

of the best physicians... And speaking of her departed husband, Mrs. Shafiqa told me that she has endowed in his name three thousand liras as an annual scholarship for the Islamic Makassed College, to be awarded to the most distinguished among its girl students... Mrs. Shafiqa fell silent... and I went on in my turn, reviewing those financial contributions and charitable donations which Mrs. Shafiqa makes with open hand whenever need and occasion call, moved to it by a lofty generosity of spirit and a noble human feeling... I tried to draw her into disclosing something of those lofty humane contributions, but she lowered her eyes and signed to me that the best charity is that which one wraps in a veil of concealment...

And however far a woman may range outside her home — pioneering, inquiring, exploring — she must return at last to her quiet nest, where her children, the pieces of her heart, await her... So it is with Mrs. Shafiqa... Scarcely had I asked her about her little ones when her face shone with the light of motherhood, and a wave of gladness and tenderness swept over it, and she fell to telling me of Salma and Salwa and Salim — already my pupils at the French Evangelical College for Girls... In the thick of her occupations she finds, every day, a space of time to spend with them, listening to the complaint of this one, the confidences of that one, the recitations of the third... Salma, the eldest of her daughters, has reached the intermediate-certificate class this year; she is a tender, blossoming girl, opening day by day — sweet, radiant, well-mannered — and eyes and glances have already begun to press, with insistence and obstinacy, to snatch her away... and the mother is at a loss, for Salma is young, no doubt, but "the destined match is a wondrous thing," as Mrs. Shafiqa says... Salwa is diligent, beloved of her teachers and companions for her good heart and her eager, willing application to work... As for little Salim, he receives the lion's share of his mother's care, for she is training him from this day forward to storm

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the hard practical life, so that he may fill his father's place, and then his mother's, in the field of affairs, and keep for the family its name and standing in the world of trade and finance... We had come this