governess, but the face of the halaïc had sobered me. Obediently I walked home, but I did not eat much supper.
The next time I saw Sitanthy, I told her of my meeting with the halaïc.
Sitanthy nodded. "She was going to her hour of happiness. She lives for that hour. She has it from time to time."
In vain I begged for more particulars. Sitanthy was the most Asiatic of all the Turkish children I have known. She could tell me stories of her world; but her world appeared to her as matter-of-fact and unromantic as the world of the elders.
Whenever I saw the halaïc she was lovely to me. She smothered me with kisses, and she scolded me kindly whenever I needed it, which was pretty often. But there was a patrician reserve about her which kept me from questioning her.
She was tender, but at times cruel. She would laugh at things which choked my throat with a big lump. Damlaly Pasha's household was poor. They lived on his pension, which was generally in arrears; for the Oriental knows no fixed time, and the Turkish government is the most oriental factor in their oriental lives.
There came days when the exchequer of the household was reduced to small coins, which the hanoum kept tied in a knot in one of the corners of her indoor veil. She always gave us a penny,
