MASOLLAM:

A PROBLEM OF THE PERIOD.

CHAPTER IV.

AMINA ENTERS UPON HER MISSION.

At this moment a low tapping was heard in an outer apartment as of some one desiring to attract attention, and afraid of intruding. Santalba hastily disengaged himself from the sheikh's embrace, saying as he did so, "It is Amina."

"You called me," she said, as he met her.

Yes, my child, I desired your presence. have that to say to your uncle

important that you should hear.

I

which it is

Much as I

should wish it, I cannot linger long here, and

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A

we three have many things to communicate to each other which are best said in these silent hours. The sheikh has already told me enough to fill my heart with joy, for I feel that I am leaving you with one who will be more to you than any earthly father; while, with the knowledge and training you have received, you can be not my daughter only, but the guide and support of his old age. Meantime I want him to know and understand you before I leave you together."

So saying he led her to the divan on which her uncle was seated, and placed her by his side. The old man received her kindly, but cast a glance of surprise and inquiry on his friend.

"I have deemed the presence of your niece necessary at this stage of our conversation," he said in reply to it; "in the first place, because her experiences, which it is fitting that you should now hear, have been not less remarkable than yours or mine; and in the second, because, for reasons which I will presently explain, with her at my side, I shall be able to enter upon the considerations suggested by your narrative, aided by a faculty of perception of which I should be deprived by her

absence. I will leave her to tell you her own story, merely saying, by way of preface to it, that on that eventful night when the attack took place upon this village, and I believed that you, as well as her father and mother, had fallen a victim to the fury of the assailants, I was happily the means of snatching this child from the grasp of one of them, at the moment when his knife was at her throat, and I fled with her to Damascus. Seeking earnestly the divine guidance in regard to the disposition which I should make of her, I perceived that she had been intrusted to me as a sacred charge; and in this Daoud Effendi Masollam, with whom, as you know, I always lodged when in that city, entirely agreed with me. So strongly did he feel on the subject, that he proposed to adopt her as his own daughter, and to train her in the knowledge of those truths which were even then unfolding their vast possibilities to our enthusiasm. Having, I believe, then, with reason, the most complete confidence in his purity and singleness of motive, and the highest admiration for his wonderful gifts, I thankfully accepted the offer, on the understanding, however, that

should the occasion present itself when I could take charge of her education in Europe she should be sent to me, as I desired she might supplement her oriental studies with the advantages of training under the influences of Western civilisation. On my return to France I married, and all the more important years of her life she passed under the immediate care and supervision of myself and of that saintly woman whom God bestowed upon me as a most precious gift; who was, and still remains, the light and inspiration of my life, and whose mantle has now fallen upon Amina. On the death of my wife, I restored our charge to the care of the Masollams, who were in Paris at the time, and she returned with them to Damascus. Her history from that time to the present she will tell you herself. I must add, however, that it had been arranged between Masollam and myself that her origin and race should not be revealed to her, but that she should be taught to regard herself as one whose duties were not to any special country or people, but to the world at large, to which sentiment she should be trained to subordinate even her