So we approached El Garah with anxiety and caution. The wells are situated at the base of a precipitous plateau of limestone, which rises abruptly from the surrounding plain. But before debouching upon this plain, the road which we were following had to pass through a long and winding valley formed by ranges of low hills. For a surprise attack no better spot could be selected. As we approached this danger-point Ghazi Mansour borrowed my field-glasses and, ascending a near-by hill, scanned the level waste which lay beyond, being careful, however, not to show himself against the sky-line. What he saw was evidently alarming, for he shouted a curt order, whereupon the cry"Biddu! Biddu!" ran down the line.

Then

much the same sort of scene was enacted that must have been a commonplace to the pioneers who crossed the Indian country by wagon-train half a century ago. The straggling caravan hastily closed up, the camels bearing the women being placed in the center. Though the French authorities permit only one rifle to every ten men of a caravan, from their places of concealment in the bales of merchandise Mausers and Osmanlis appeared by magic, followed by a rattle of breechblocks as the cartridges were driven home. Half a dozen Arabs raced forward in skirmish order, buckling on their bandoleers as they ran, while others took position well out on each flank. As I was riding a camel at the time, Achmet leaped on my pony and, waving a rifle over his head, went

tearing forward at a gallop to act as a point. The whole manoeuver was faultlessly executed, and could not have been improved upon by any soldiers in the world.

As we emerged from the defile we discovered the cause of the alarm, for, coming toward us at a brisk trot across the desert, was a group of camel-riders, whose mounts we recognized, even at that distance, as of the Bedouin racing breed. Through the glasses I could see that each man carried his rifle upright, with the butt resting on his hip, like a cavalryman. But our anxiety abruptly evaporated when we saw that they had been joined by Achmet, who appeared to be conversing with them as though they were old friends. They proved to be a patrol of French méharistes in pursuit of Arab gun-runners, for, nowadays, not even in the depths of the desert can the fugitive from justice escape the long arm of the French law. Their leader informed us that our alarm had been by no means without foundation, for a Bedouin war party, several hundred strong, had left El Garah that very morning. We had missed them by only about six hours. At the time we felt as though we had been cheated out of an adventure which would have provided us with dinner-table conversation for the rest of our lives. But, upon thinking the matter over, I have decided that perhaps it was just as well those Bedouins departed before we arrived. For their sheik, you see, was not one of those to whom we bore letters of introduction.

He was surprised to have her telegram? No; for it had seemed to him every day that she would come back. Then he had been lonesome! No; only often thinking that she might walk in at the gate.

"And now you wonder why I came, don't you, dear? You think it's to tell you that I'm going to be married?" "Married!" said John Perrin. "Why, you 're only twenty-fourtwenty-six. Well, yes, twenty-seven." "But it's not that," said Leda, and demanded supper lest he should ask her what it was, though for days she had been schooling herself to tell him.

now driving her home for a year of rest. She could not tell him on this first night.

Instead, she told him about New York, her year of work in the magazine office, the after hours when she had been shut in her room writing.

"A novel; I could n't bear to write scraps. A novel about wicked folk who are good."

"She 's young yet," John Perrin thought. "It takes longer to write about good folk who are wicked." Aloud he asked, "What 's wicked?" "Something you ministers teach us about," his daughter said.

When the pain became intolerable,

she rose, and wandered about the room: shelves of tooled leather; old silhouettes of her father's Cornish family; bits of faience gathered by her dead London mother; embroidery and copper brought by a grandfather in the Indian consular service before the Mutiny; the world. How was she to spend a year here in Prospect parsonage, forbidden to touch her pen? She said to her father: "You look happy.' "You 're here."

"No, another sort."

Perrin had imagined himself to be veiling his small triumph. Not that the triumph was certain, but he had made an investment represented to him as both sound and moral. He and Leda might be at the avenue of that year of theirs in Greece, with a bit of excavating.

He said:

"We'll save what I have to tell you. Now what have you to tell me?" "We'll save that, too." At breakfast she asked: "How are the Crumbs?" Her father looked guilty.

"I don't know when I've seen them." "Cousins make one such a hypocrite! Why can't we have a row with the Crumbs and never recover?"

"Are n't you any farther on than that?"

"Yes. No, I 'm not, really; but I know how to pretend to be."

"Montana. And Crete-would you like to swing down through Crete?" "Crete, by all means. You feel it's an investment that-"

"Quite gilt-edged. They say " He told her what they said. "Sicily is an old dream of mine." He talked of his old dream. He added: "Don't say anything of this to the Crumbs, of course if they come to-night. Orrin would want to advise me."

"You did n't have anybody's advice, dear, did you?”

"No more than you do on what you should put in your stories." His delicacy veiled his mild triumph.

$2

The Crumbs were dining at the Perrins. The Crumbs were cousins

"Oh, a little."

"Suppose"-severely-"we have the

Crumbs for dinner to-night."

"Our first night!"

"To discipline our souls."

Her eyes livened.

alty; double cousins, since a Crumb had married a Crumb. The mellow room received them.

"Well," said Mrs. Truman Crumb, and kissed Leda, one might say, verbally.

"Well, Cousin!" cried Tweet Crumb.

"Here's the city girl!" burst from Orrin, husband of Tweet. He did not kiss Leda. He looked as if he thought of it and refrained from ethical considerations.

Leda and her father were standing. Berta would return in a moment to announce dinner, but the Crumbs sat down, oblivious. They could initiate anything.

"Thin," said Orrin; "she 's thin." They inspected Leda; but Tweet was not able, really, to inspect anything out of relation to herself. Perhaps to such an extent did she feel the solidarity of the race that she considered every problem of others by referring it to her own.

"I wish you 'd tell me how you do it," she said, and dipped her glance to her own excessive endowments.

"Isn't Pearl coming?" Leda asked. "Pearl overdid," said Mrs. Truman Crumb. This seemed to require no elaborating. Pearl dissolved.

"And Grandfather Crumb?"
"You did n't expect him?"
"Why not?"

"We never thought to mention it to him. Did anybody?" Nobody had mentioned it to him.

Berta came, said, "Dinner," with enormous distinctness, and withdrew, running. Leda's apology was her low laughter, but this laughter the Crumbs did not even note. Did not hostesses always laugh, especially in leading the way to the dining-room?

The parsonage dining-room the Perrins had paneled to the ceiling in dark oak. The light was from table candles and a mound of flowers.

Orrin Crumb demanded, "Are n't we citified?" He entered upon the occasion as if he were physically stepping into something. As the clean,

smiling fellow approached his chair, you no less than saw that he was a traveling salesman filled with esprit de corps. It would not matter what the corps was; the esprit would be there. Tweet cried:

"Mama, I do wish we could make our table look elegant like Cousin Leda's." Orrin said:

"You do when we have company." But she perceived no misstep, and continued to regard the linen.

"I always thought our table looked good enough for anybody," said Mrs. Truman Crumb. "And Mr. Crumb always thought so, too." Beneath her thin, dying hair, with its lively wave, her heavy-arched eyebrows pensively lifted. You understood that Mr. Crumb was gone.

Orrin Crumb said to his host:

"Well, and how are spiritual affairs progressing?" His bright-eyed alertness, his moist, parted lips, his faint, sweet odor of soap-all became invested with his desire to be at home on his host's own plane. It was, "How's the market?" and no more than that.

A light candle appeared to flicker in the shell of John Perrin's face.

"Not very steady," he gravely replied. "The bulls eating the lambs alive-oh, it 's bears, is n't it?"

The vibrations of Orrin Crumb's laughter were petty convulsions. He said inarticulate things.

"And the Gideonites?" Mr. Perrin asked. He asked it with the playful intonation of established church goodnaturedly countenancing the little ethical excursions of a lay world.

Orrin's convolutions flattened; his eyes grew round with the recollection of his spiritual life. He began to talk of the convention to be held in Pros