nor had she felt the tall building swaying to the right and to the left; but her brother's description, and the descriptions of all the neighbors, were enough to spread horror through her limbs... How dreadful, what the papers and the radio passed on yesterday morning about the catastrophe... Whole villages, down to the last house, collapsed and ruined... Thousands of people in the roads... Hundreds of children under the rubble... Hundreds more driven out, with neither shelter nor food!

Here Randa recalled her prayer of that night, and she lowered her eyes and her cheeks were dyed with shame. She had thanked God for turning death and homelessness away from her... A thousand shames upon her, that in the moment of fear she should forget all people, near and far, and confine her concern to her own person... How was the little one now to atone for a sin committed against humanity? The feeling of guilt came back upon her whenever she happened to listen to the news of the catastrophe and its details — and how many details came her way that day!! The specter swelled in her head and weighed upon her tender conscience; perplexity took hold of her, and with it remorse. How was she to atone for her sin? How to wipe out this offense against her own humanity?

In this crushed state of soul Randa met her second day, feeling herself weak and worthless. How to slip free of this feeling — how to flee from it? How to return to her former contented life at home and at school?

In vain she turned her eyes from the pages of the newspapers, filled with pictures and

heartrending stories from the stricken villages, now numbering close upon two hundred... In vain she stopped her ears and her other senses against the tales that were being passed around, at which hearts are torn... and against the broadcasts trying to calm the people and failing, leaving them in the flood of their imaginings, between anxiety and fear... far from any calm of nerves.

And today her headmistress stood urging on the pupils, rousing their generosity, drawing forth their giving for the sake of little ones left destitute, and perhaps sick!... And she ran to her mother in distress, a heap of sorrow and misery. And it satisfied her pride that her gift exceeded the gifts of her companions. But the ten liras were her mother's, not hers; and so the teacher's praise came without healing the wound in her heart, without quieting the storm in her conscience. And she called back to mind a story the teacher had told in class, of a wealthy lady who took off her precious pearl necklace for the victims... If she had jewels she would give them all... or half of them at the very least!

And Randa started up, remembering! She remembered that she owned a money box with a ringing metallic rattle, for whose sake how often she had denied herself the tastiest morsels! Without hesitation she sprang up, driven — her conscience with her — to the hiding place... where the money box was. She took it in her hands and fell to turning it about and working at it with trembling fingers, using force upon it by turns until its seam gave way for her into two halves... and the yellow and white coins scattered over the carpet between her feet. First she feasted her eyes on the sight of them; then she clutched them with one hand and fortified them with the fingers of the other, and flung herself on the edge of the

bed, panting with exhaustion as though she had just come out of a battle! And with her panting broke forth burning sighs. Were her murmurings a questioning... or a prayer? She must decide. She must decide... the final destiny of what lay in her hand! And she stayed thus in a flood of confusion and perplexity... her chilled gaze nailed to the open cage on top of the wardrobe, and her wounded conscience pumping into her veins blood that was red... and aching!

There — she has decided!... At once she threw the handful into her lap, damp with sweat from the heat of her two trembling hands, and bent over the coins, counting them for the first time, and tying them into a little bundle which she tucked into her pocket, a trust for the Red Cross — and her eyes flashed with sparks from the breezes of Paradise! And she stood upright on her feet. She mounted a chair that brought her up to the cage, and carried it joyfully to its old faithful nail on the balcony wall! What radiance passed over her glowing face, and what a victorious smile was traced on the sweet mouth as she shut the cage door — with all the rapture there is in victory... and all the strength.

And from her heart... rose the song of Fifi, in lively volley upon volley, filling the quarter and the whole world with song... none sweeter, none more tender!!!