in Suad Haroun's house, each of us with a glass of refreshment in her hand and the conventional words of compliment on our lips.

She said — "Tell me, what is our city's share of you two?" And I said — "One day: twenty-four hours, no more, after which I go back in spite of myself — and let Angele stay if she wishes."

And Angele countered — "No... the Ahliah institution cannot bear my absence for more than a day."

The dispensary's doctor between the president and the members

And Suad tried to be convinced that we were businesswomen!! I was seeing Suad for the first time... and all I knew of her was that she runs an association and organizes lectures...

The young woman began to talk, and it became clear to me that the lectures are on the margin of projects, by no means slight, undertaken by the guidance association that Suad founded. Suad is a graduate of Beirut College for Women, holding from it a bachelor of science.

Suad finished school and returned to Latakia, to find herself in a narrow circle whose men live in one valley and whose women in another. And stranger still, the

women are not without academic culture.

Among them are women who studied at the universities of Beirut and Damascus, and among them holders of the baccalaureate — all of whom came back to drop a veil over their faces or, if they rebelled against the veil, to live a life in no way different from the life of the veiled.

For a life that passes in harem visits, in conventional women's chatter, and in nibbling pistachios cannot be a life.

In the town are illiterate women for whom the government schools have no room, and among them poor women who cannot secure a life that would let them think of study.

That is in the poor circles; as for the wealthy ones, there are perfumed women there who yawn their days away in idle luxury.

And so "the Guidance Association for Girls" had to be born.

Suad said: I shall not speak of the association until you have touched its activity with your own eyes. And now, to the table...

The food was delicious; Suad insisted it was the work of her own hands, and we in our turn tried to believe her!!

We rose from her table to make ready to go to the public library, and I can affirm that the number of women present exceeded six hundred... a figure that some of the women lecturers of Beirut may never have known. I was told that it is like this every time the women are invited to a lecture... and the lectures follow one another, built on a studied plan to ensure variety. We finished, and went off with Suad to visit the association's center and become acquainted, at our leisure, with the members.

And we found them there —

Cultured young women, with gentleness in them,