ease to her body

and shed calm and quiet upon her soul.

In this refuge Umm Sahloul gave birth to her awaited child; between its walls he was born and reared, and out of it that scion of darkness went forth to greet the light of life in the world of hope, work, and struggle.

And that hunted outcast, foster-child of indignity and misery, took care to surround the growing infant with tending, to shield him from the forces of wretchedness and vagrancy, and to turn him into a being with standing and consequence in the world — just such as she wished him to be!

How often Umm Sahloul took her child in her hands and dandled him in that dark room, by the glimmer of the dusty lamp's wick, whispering to him:

— You shall grow greater than your father... and you shall amount to something!

Then she would press him to her breast with passion, her mouth joined to his in kisses over which her tender tears flowed.

Whenever her eye fell on a man of dignified bearing and distinguished dress, she would commune with herself, saying:

— Why should my son not be like this man?... May God protect him!

If she passed a house of elegant appearance and lofty stories, she would gaze up at it, saying:

— Why should my son not live in a house like that?... May God protect him!

And if a car of splendid look and gleaming paint went past her, she would follow it with her eyes, saying:

— May my son have a car like that car... may God protect him!

And the woman went on working, bustling in her efforts, clinging ever more tightly to life, shoulder-ing whatever burdens of livelihood confronted her, for the sake of

her cherished child... She denied herself food to feed him delicacies; she contented herself with patched rags for clothing so as to dress him in the finest garments; and she never tired of keeping him clean and minding his appearance, while she herself went about in filth and grime.

No sooner could the boy understand her than most of her talk with him was counsel: to be refined of soul, abounding in dignity, high of station... She repeated it in his ears before she left him each morning, and after she returned to him each evening;

and in between she was sunk in humiliation and degradation, spilling the water of her face all day long in beggary, and growing her fortune, day upon day, from the alms of the generous which she laid by.

The boy grew and came of age; the institutes of learning took him in, and there he received the various branches

of knowledge. He applied himself to his studies with driving deter-mination and keen intelligence, his mother firing his resolve and