follow one upon another, and when its moaning alarms us.. we mount the banister and hug it with one arm while raising the candle high with the other.. then we leave it to do with us as it will. And it twists with us.. and turns.. two full turns before the three of us — I, my sister, and the banis-ter — reach the ground floor..

And our weariness.. and we forget our terror.. at the threshold of the forbidden room, and it is not long before we merge.. one with the "piano".. and one with the "violin".. having shut the windows and the doors, and left the darkness to veil us, and the melodies to soothe the heat of our feelings and set our imagination aglow..

And in the morning.. we watch "Umm Wahiba" as she burns incense.. mastic, and benzoin, and black seed, releasing the per-fumed, choking smoke into every corner and every angle.. above and below.. leaving out neither the bathroom nor the roof, and on her face are marks of dread, and terror, and meekness.. abasing herself before the music-playing demons, that they may quit the house!!..

But.. truth be told.. my sister is calmer than I.. tall and slender, her figure has filled and rounded like a rose stem in a well-watered garden.. her cheeks glow with a faint blush, and her eyes glitter with a strange, fleeting spark.. with mystery in it.. as though things upon things were being unveiled to her. And I, if I noticed a smile flitting across her dreamy gaze, would climb upon her, embrace her, and implore her to let me share her thoughts.. to tell me what was occupying her.. so that we might laugh together, and dream together.. Have we not been friends all our lives?.. Sister.. sister.. I shall quarrel with you.. And she pushes

me gently away, her cheeks burning. And she smooths my hair, brushing my fringe from my forehead.. as if I were a baby and not a big girl of ten with muscles in her arms stronger than her own.. thanks to exercising with the iron flatirons every morning. Then "Samia" says to me:

— There is nothing.. I am not laughing.. something merely drifted into my mind.

And I gnaw my fingertips with vexation.. Why does nothing drift into my mind.. mine too?.. Why does no fancy occupy me.. no

phantom?.. And my eyes.. yes, they are bright.. my mother says of them: "a she-devil's eyes," but they are eyes that do not droop.. do not sink into a dreaming languor like my sister's, and their lashes do not flutter coquettishly, as though someone were courting her all the while.. or as though her smile were whispering some soft message to her..

And her playing has grown less.. her movements measured, her steps shortened — she who used to vie with me at climbing the bedpost like the monkeys, at leaping from window to chair, and

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