Irene the Missionary

XXVII.

As Irene had feared, Dr. Macklin was selected to join the Damascus station, and to give what opening to the truth he could by his prescriptions and surgeries.

“ I could n’t escape this,” he privately explained to Mrs. Payson, on the evening of his arrival. “ I did n’t want to impose my presence on Irene, and I dreaded to meet her for my own sake. But Dr. Anson could n’t come without either displacing or dividing another family. It seemed wrong to call on the mission to consider my private affairs. I said nothing about them, and here I am. ”

“ But your health, doctor,” she sighed. “ I am afraid the summer here will quite break you down.”

“ That does n’t matter. If I can die, and die in this work, I shan’t grieve over it. Do you think Irene will be much troubled by my presence? ”

” I don't care if she is,” snapped Mrs. Payson. “ I hope so. I hope she has some conscience.”

“ She has a conscience,” declared the doctor, with equal spirit. “She is a good, sweet, noble girl. It isn’t her fault if men fall in love with her who are not worthy of her.”

Mrs. Payson gazed at her magnanimous favorite in mute amazement and despair.

“ I ought not to fret at you,” said Macklin, repenting of his impetuosity. “ You are my fast friend, and I thank you for it.”

“ I was n’t hurt. I was merely wondering to see you so changed.”

“ Yes, I am changed,” sighed the doctor. “ When a man is bled at his heart, it takes the pride and the spunk out of him. I don’t know but it betters him. I am no longer conceited about my spirit, and I think I can offer the other cheek to the smiter. Well, this is unmanly and silly, — this prattling about my own sorrow. Let us say no more of it so long as I remain with you. And—one thing more, my dear friend — I want you to treat Irene as though we were all one in purpose and love.”

“ Oh, yes,” said the good lady. “ Tere must be no quarreling in the mission. And besides, it might send her hack to Bhamdun; she wasn’t obliged to come here, ”

The doctor, in spite of the deep wound in his heart, was so amused over this shrewd after-thought that he smiled as he turned away.

A number of days passed in quiet. There was no war in Lebanon and none in the Payson household. Dr. Macklin spent much of his time in receiving and visiting a horde of patients, who seemed to start into existence under his pills, as if these had been the stones of Deucalion. Irene, who had no girls to teach, occasionally lent a hand at washing a wound or a sore-eyed baby, and devoted some hours every day to an ambitious attempt at translating a Sabbath-school book into Arabic, meanwhile often wishing herself back in Lebanon, where she could be of more obvious use.

Copyright, 1879, by HOUGHTON, OSGOOD & Co.

The two never met except at mealtimes, and otherwise in the presence of the Paysons. Each tried to look upon the other solely as a fellow-laborer in the great vineyard. The doctor wrestled earnestly with himself for repining that Irene should not love him as well as the cause of righteousness; and the young lady, on her part, strove to revere him as a most noble friend, who deserved everything from her that she could truly give.

It was rather a forced situation, one must admit; and I don’t wonder that it lasted only a week or so. One sultry afternoon, when the heat was beyond the computation of a common thermometer, the doctor and Irene sought what freshness there was in the great Saloon. In this lofty apartment, where the waters of the Barida bubbled over the marble fountain, there was at least a look and a noise of coolness.

“ I can stay nowhere else,” apologized Macklin, who had entered last. “I can’t bear these heats as I once could.”

“ Lie down on the mnkaad,” she replied. pointing out the one opposite to herself. “ You must get a rest when you can. You know the mission stands on its medicine chest.”

“ I wish these people cared as much for their souls as they do for their bodies,” he sighed, stretching himself out wearily. “ Payson would have more work, and I should have less, and things would look better.”

Then there was a long silence, during which she sewed languidly, and he furtively gazed at her. The only sound in the great, dim, superb ball was the monotonous bubbling and dripping of the marble basin. This murmur was magically tranquillizing and full of influences of content. It seemed enough to make two people willing to stay there forever, and able to find each other’s companionship all sufficient for happiness. As Macklin listened to it, and looked the while at Irene, the idea of marriage stole into his mind, and instantly won entire possession.

“ Irene,” he said, in a tone which was so peculiar that she started and raised • her eyes quickly.

“ I have kept silence a long while, Irene,” he continued, feeling in some wild way that that start of hers had given him permission to say all he would. “ I have accorded you plenty of time to think over what we talked of in Beirut.”

She did not answer him at once. There was something in his voice and manner which deeply moved her. It was a despairing composure, like that of a sick person who earnestly desires to live, yet sees little hope of life, and strives after resignation. She had a sentiment of throbbing pity for this patient, and yet evidently racked, sufferer; and, mingled with it, there was undoubtedly gratitude and admiration for an affection which knew no changing. It is a combination of emotions which has often helped to make a lover victorious on his second trial.

“ You will not blame me, I trust, for returning to the subject,” he added, imploringly.

She shook her head. She knew not how to do otherwise; as yet she could not decide what words to utter.

“ Then I may hope? ” gasped Macklin, suddenly half beside himself, and leaping to his feet.

“ Oh, doctor!” exclaimed Irene, sitting, straight up and staring at him.

“ What do you mean ? What did I say ? I said nothing.”

“ You surely gave me to understand that you did not object ” —

“ No, no! Sit down again. Let me tell you how it was. I want you to listen to me.”

She had quite recovered her calmness of demeanor, if not of spirit. Even a shy and sensitive girl can get somewhat used to being proposed to, if she has practice enough. The doctor resumed his seat in a subdued frame of mind, as men generally do when so ordered by their heart’s darlings.

“ I said I did not blame you for speaking of it again,” she went on. “ That is what you asked me, and I nodded, yes. That was all, and it was true. How can I blame you for remembering me kindly? I thought you meant no more. I thought—I hoped, at least—that you would stop there. I did n’t mean that you should go on to say more.”

“ But I must say more,” persisted Macklin. “ Now that my mouth is opened on the subject, I must tell you ” —

“ No, no, no!” broke in Irene. “You are not reasonable; you are hardly kind. Would you have a girl marry without love? It must n’t be talked of. Oh, I do like you — as a friend.”

“ That is so easily said,” groaned the doctor. “ What does it amount to? ”

“ It won’t amount to much if this goes on,” returned Irene, firmly. “ If this goes on, it will be one constant bicker. We shall cease—that is easy enough to foresee — we shall cease to be friends.”

“ Never! ” declared Macklin, loudly. “ You can’t help my being your friend, no matter how much you hate me.”

“ I shall never hate you,” she said.

“ Then, why ” — he pleaded; but suddenly there came upon him a crushing sense of the hopelessness of his suit, and, throwing himself at full length upon the mukaad, he buried his face in a cushion.

A brave and noble-hearted man in tears is a moving spectacle to a girl who has the right kind of heart in her bosom. For a moment Irene had a feeling that she must give up this struggle some day, and that she might as well surrender at once. Then her nervous fingers, straying aimlessly about, rested on the pocket of her dress, and became conscious of a letter there. It was the last epistle from De Vries, received and read that morning, and not yet answered.

“ Of course I can’t stay here,” she said, rising softly. “ I shall go to my own room.”

“I won’t drive you away!” sobbed the doctor, springing up and rushing by her out of the saloon.

She returned slowly to the sofa, sat down, took out Hubertsen’s letter, and looked at it pensively. There was a consciousness that the sight of her own name in that handwriting gave her pleasure, — a pleasure which streamed like warmth through all her being, even to the very veins in her fingers.

“ If it had not been for that ! ” — she thought. “ But where am I drifting to? This also will never be.”

All the same, her reply was written that very day, in a kind of passion of haste; and when Hubertsen read it he said to himself that his little. Puritan was a charming correspondent; in fact, he so declared to her in his own next.

Of course, Irene dreaded her next meeting with the doctor; but the goodhearted man made it very easy for her. After a severe wrestle with the confusions of his spirit, he found grace to resolve that their intercourse should not be “one constant bicker,” and he decided to be once more the frank, boisterous friend and comrade. By a heroic effort — an effort perhaps incredible to some men who have been in the like situation— he put aside all shrinkings, reserves, broodings, and incriminations, and treated her as he had done in their early acquaintance. He joked her, he made believe bully her a little, and, in short, took on the deportment of an elder brother.

Irene half believed that he no longer cared for her, and possibly never had cared very seriously. At all events, the change was delightful in comparison with love-making, and she did her best to assume his tone of unceremonious familiarity. So for a time they consorted comfortably enough, and had somewhat the air of boon companions. Once, indeed, there was such a scene as might occur between a young lady and a mentorizing brother-in-law.

They were walking through the bazaars, gazing at the long rows of slovenly alcoves on either hand, and at the dignified, handsome, white-turbaned Damascenes, whose grave, dark eyes scornfully returned their glances. A ragged, cringing Jew saluted the doctor humbly, and handed him a letter. Macklin gave the wretched creature a piastre, and of course looked at the address.

“ It is mine,,” said Irene, reaching hastily for it. “ It must have dropped out of my pocket when I paid for that rohotlicoom. ”

But the doctor had already seen the superscription of '‘Mr. Porter Brassey, American Consul, Beirut.”

“ What are you corresponding with that man for?” he demanded, quite in his old domineering way.

Now Irene might have told him that Mr. Brassey had written her a second offer of marriage, and that this letter contained a courteous refusal of the same. But of course she did not feel at liberty to disclose the consul’s love secrets,— at least, not to another gentleman.

“ I have business with him,” she laughed. “ Do you suppose that ladies never have anything to do with affairs of state? ”

“Nonsense!” said the doctor. “I insist upon knowing what that letter is about.”

“ I can’t, tell you.”

“ What do you mean ? ” he almost shouted. “ Are you to correspond with that commonplace creature, and your old friends to know nothing about it?”

“ My old friends of six months’ standing!’’ Irene laughed again.

“ If it is your secret, of course I don’t insist,” he retorted, sarcastically.

“ Of course it is n't my secret. How you do jibe at me! But I am not going to tell you; I won’t tell you the first thing.’ ’

“ You must n't send the letter, then.”

“ I must and shall send it. How absurd ! ’ ’

“ Well, go on in your own way,” he replied, loudly. “ You will get into trouble, with your recklessness, some of these days.”

He was trying to be in a passion, as a sort of comfort to himself. There was a runnel of Barida water in the street, and he straddled to the other bank of it. He would not walk near her for some minutes. Meantime, the black-bearded, cross-legged merchants looked on with composed eyes of scorn, or exchanged contemptuous Moslem smiles over this street tiff between a Frank and his unveiled, brazen wife.

On reaching home, Macklin so bullied Mrs. Payson about this correspondence between her ward and Mr. Brassey that she told him the whole story of that functionary’s persistent love.

“She must answer him,” argued the lady, gently. “ I don’t think she is to blame. ”

“ I think she is,” blustered the doctor. “ She ought to have so answered him the first, time that he never would have been heard from again.”

Mrs. Pavson could not say that some men won’t stop for one, refusal, and the conversation ended in a little harmless abuse of the poor consul.

XXVIII.

Three days after the farcical battle over Irene’s correspondence, Mr. Payson returned in great haste from his afternoon walk in the shadowy bazaars, and brought into the family presence a visage full of anxiety and sorrow.

“ The sword is unsheathed at last,” he said. “ I heard mutterings among those Moslem merchants about battles on Lebanon. It is only too true. I went directly to the chief of the muleteers, and learned from him that men had arrived this noon with war in their mouths. The Maronites have risen against the Druzes, and where it will end God alone knoweth.”

“ I wish I was in the mountains!” broke out the doctor, his pugnacious face flushing.

The thought came to Irene that her letter would reach the consul just in time to deaden his interest in protecting the mission, if he were capable of being thus ignobly influenced by a refusal. It was characteristic of her that she should feel a sense of guilt in that matter, and should glance timidly at Mrs. Payson, as if begging her not to scold.

“ We are in our allotted post of duty, doctor,” said Payson. “ Here we must remain until we are bidden away.”

“ Oh, of course I stay,” grumbled Macklin. “ I suppose I must stay. But I would rather be where I could fight for our native brethren.”

“ May the Mightiest cause the sword to pass by them! I do not see why they should be harmed, — they are neither Druzes nor Maronites. But they will be sorely terrified. I should like to be among them to cheer them.”

(“ Poor Mrs. Pelton will be frightened,” thought Mrs. Payson. “ And Saada and Rufka.”)

“ Mr. DeVries is with them,” suggested Irene. “I do hope he will be careful of himself.”

“ I fear he will be less alarmed than his case demands,” said Mr. Payson, who earnestly wanted “ unconverted persons ” to be afraid. “ There is danger that the lad will ride into some skirmish merely to see it. How can one have such a desire! I can think of nothing but our poor folds, surrounded by ravenings and bowlings, terrified, scattered, though I trust not slaughtered. And Lebanon, running with blood and lighted by flame,—it is too horrible! Yet it has come; God has at last permitted it. We must bear it as submissively as we can, praying all the while that the sword may be stayed.”

Reports of assassination, of burnings of villages, of battle and massacre, now came thick and fast. The little mission colony heard of more bloodshed and devastation than the war wrought. But enough was true: a murderous struggle for supremacy had really opened between the Maronites and Druzes; the contest was carried on with the desperation of men who fought for life even more than for empire; half Lebanon was rattling with wide-spread musketry and dim with the smoke of blazing dwellings. The Druzes, a race of warriors, and led by families of warlike chiefs, quickly assumed the offensive and the superiority. Greatly overmatched in numbers, and believing that they could afford no mercy, they granted none. Christian fugitives from the mountain were soon streaming over all the surrounding districts. A few reached Damascus, and brought horrible accounts of the ferocity of their enemies, exhibiting in proof thereof noses cut off and wrists amputated.

There were Frank refugees, also, — travelers who had been surprised by the cyclone of warfare, and who had fled to the first discoverable city of refuge. One noteworthy couple of this class penetrated into the mission house with as much vigor of purpose as though it had arrived by cannon-shot. Mr. Payson saw before him, one morning, a gray-whiskered, well-dressed, personable, polite gentleman of near sixty, bearing on his arm a tall, dark, black-eyed lady, richly but carelessly attired, who might have been twenty years his junior.

“ Mr. Payson, I believe,” said the old beau, bowing and smiling and simpering in the most honeyed fashion. “ One of our noble band of American missionaries. My name is Wormly, — Anthony W. Wormly, — of Philadelphia. I am delighted to make your reverend acquaintance. Allow me to present to you my friend, Miss Minnie Biffles, a fellow countrywoman and an enthusiastic lover of the Holy Land. We are fugitives, Mr. Payson, from Hasbeya. ”

“ Hasbeya has not been attacked? ” asked the missionary, eagerly.

“ Not at all, my dear sir; at least, not to our knowledge. But we heard of bands roving about, and Mount Lebanon in an uproar. It seemed to be dangerous to try to reach Beirut by way of Deir el Kamr. And here we are in Damascus, without a roof to shelter us, the hotel being full. Can you kindly favor us with lodging for the night? ”

“ Surely I can, and must,” assented Payson. “ Your people will have to sleep in the court, but there are rooms for yourselves.”

“ We have no people,” smiled Mr. Anthony W. Wormly. “ We hire men and animals from place to place. Miss Biffles prefers that method of travel as being more in accordance with her — her views.”

The clergyman glanced at the lady with a slight expression of perplexity. The fact that her name was Biffles, while her companion was Wormly, puzzled him.

“ We are direct from the Holy City,” said Miss Biffles, who had thrown off her hat, and dropped her slender longitude on a sofa in a very easy posture. “ We came north by the Jordan valley, because I wanted to see the whole of Israel’s river. What a lovely stream! What a wonderful region! What a land this will be when the reign of peace and love opens! ”

“ Miss Biffles has views concerning the millennium,” observed Mr. Wormly, in an explanatory tone, which, by the way, seemed to indicate that he did not share her theories, but merely put up with them for valid reasons.

The missionary closed his eyes gently, with the air of a man who prays for patience. During his residence in Syria he had seen a good many religious oddities; and he understood, with controllable annoyance, that a person of this type was now before him. There, was no use, he at once said to himself, in arguing with the woman. He would not. waste a single rational induction or devout inference upon a millenarian. Already he had decided that, no matter how fiercely she might babble about the reign of peace and love, he would listen in silence, and then turn the conversation.

“ I wish you would step out, Mr. Wormly, and see that my trunks are carried up to my room properly,” was Miss Biffles’s next remark. “ Those stupid Arabs will be sure to sling them topsyturvy.”

The beauish old fellow pattered forth meekly on his mission, and the clergyman was left alone with the lady who had views.

“ I suppose you had a severe push from Hasbeya,” he observed. “ It is a very hot journey at this season.”

“ Hot is no word for it,” said Miss Biffles. “I should have given up the ghost a dozen times over, if I had n’t believed in the presence of the kingdom, and been determined to live to see it acknowledged.”

“ Did you chance upon any of our good native brethren there?” asked Payson.

“ I chanced upon them,” returned the lady, with scornful pity. “ I had some conversation with one who spoke English. Why don’t you preach to them the present reign of righteousness? ”

“ We preach the little truth that we are large enough to receive. We are sadly ignorant.”

“ The whole world is,” affirmed Miss Biffles. “ If it were not so, all our troubles would end. The great fact of our times is that the millennium is with us, and the nations know it not. Whenever they cease to be blinded, whenever they open their eyes to what has already transpired, war and violence and selfishness will suddenly be no more, and the reign of love will be universal. Look at these Druzes and Maronites! Do you suppose that they would have gone to fighting if they had known what I know? Not a bit of it. They would have seen that they were brothers, and they would have loved each other.”

Miss Biffles said all this composedly, in a deep contralto voice which gave an impression of sincerity, and which also expressed a certain amount of dignity and domination. Mr. Payson began to think that he had to do with a serious case of religious mania, amounting perhaps to stark lunacy. He wished that Mr. Wormly would return and look after Miss Biffles. And what was the connection between them, and why was Miss Biffles here alone with Mr. Wormly? Was he, possibly, her keeper?

“Is this gentleman a relative of yours?” he asked, summoning all his resolution.

“Not at all,” replied Miss Biffles, unabashed. “I never saw him till we met on the Mount of Olives. We travel together because we sympathize. By the way, I was speaking to you of the reign of love, and was about to mention my proofs that the time has fully come. The whole problem has been figured out from Daniel to the Revelation with absolute certainty. I know that the thousand years of peace have begun. Preach that, if you want to do any good; preach it to-morrow, — to-day. At a proper time I will read you a conclusive essay on the subject. It will afford me a great deal of pleasure.”

Mr. Payson mentally resolved that that pleasure Miss Biffles should never have. Just then, too, he was gladdened by hearing the street gate bang, a sound which gave him hope that his wife and Irene were at hand, and that he would be able to turn this foolish old maid over to wiser observation and management than his own. Accordingly he begged his guest to excuse him for a moment, and went in quest of the partner of all his perplexities, as well as of his joys.

“ Please tell Mr. Wormly to open the trunks for me,” the lady called after him. “He has the keys, if he hasn’t lost them. I dare say he has.”

Paying no attention to this request, which struck him as savoring of indecorum, Mr. Payson hastened to unfold the situation to his wife.

“You must attend to her, my dear,” he said, after he had hastily told what he knew about Miss Biffles and her friend. “I don’t understand how to handle women, even when they are sane. You must get her into her room, and get the other lunatic out of it. I don’t know what it all means, except that they are a couple of silly old creatures, who stand in sore need of our kindly oversight. You might open Miss Biffles’s trunks for her, and send her companion down to me.”

“ I’ll arrange it,” promised Mrs. Payson. “ I ’ll look over the lady’s dresses with her, and Irene shall take the gentleman down-stairs.”

The good missionary did not smile at the unmeant humor of this proposition. He did not get any insight, from it as to feminine ways of managing men and women; or, if he did, not a glimmer of such intelligence appeared on his rapt, pensive visage. He looked merely glad to be freed from Miss Biffles, and went off hastily to the quiet of his study.

In three minutes Miss Biffles was showing her “ things ” to Mrs. Payson, and talking fluently about the latest fashions in New York and Paris, without an allusion to millennial robes. It seemed rather surprising, by the way, that she should have been anxious as to the delicate handling of her portmanteaux. Her method of unpacking was simply to turn a trunk bottom-side up and spread its contents on the floor. When she had finished her researches among the débris she repacked by the armful, tossing the articles in as though with a pitchfork.

Meantime, Mr. Wormly had been inveigled down-stairs by Irene.

The moment he saw the young lady he made up to her with the instinct of a born woman-worshiper and the smile of a veteran bean. Before he had been fifteen minutes with her in the saloon, he had found an opportunity to give her hand a tender squeeze, and had told her that he was deeply interested in her labors and history.

“ But you don’t know anything about my history,” she replied, a little annoyed with his ogling and his turkey-cock bowing and-sidling.

“ Ah, yes,—excuse me,” grinned Mr. Wormly, showing a great deal of gold in his teeth. “ When I meet a charming young lady far away from home, and leading a recluse existence, I can divine something. I can divine that she has had a history which is worthy of any man’s sympathy. I can feel sure, for instance, that she has suffered, and that she has had noble aspirations. ”

As he continued to smirk at her in an intriguing way, Irene determined to get rid of the subject at once, and suddenly asked him, “ Did you meet a family named Brann in Jerusalem ? ”

“ Certainly,” bowed Mr. Wormly, looking rather discomfited. “ Old gentleman and sociable lady, with several sons and daughters. I didn’t think much of the men, I must tell you, Miss Grant. Rather silent and heavy. The ladies were,— I can't say they were pretty, but they were Very agreeable. On the whole, very pleasant ladies, both mother and daughters,—very pleasant, indeed. By the way, I ought to apologize, perhaps, for speaking so inconsiderately of the men on such very brief acquaintance. Surely, they cannot he relatives? I see no resemblance. Of course not; I thought not. Very dull men, I must say, but very pleasant ladies.”

Just then Miss Biffles entered the saloon, and asked, sharply, “ What’s that, Mr. Wormly? ”

The old beau was long in responding, and Irene had to answer the query.

“ Those Brann women!” exclaimed the lady of views. Those creatures pleasant! Mr. Wormly is always polite to the sex, as he calls it. They were a lot of empty-headed prattlers. The men had some silent, solid sense in them.”

It occurred to Irene that perhaps Mr. Wormly disliked the Brann males because they were men, and that Miss Biffles disliked the Brann females because they were women. But being sorry for the disconcerted old gentleman, she strove to change the conversation by asking him how long he should stay in Damascus.

“ We may remain for weeks, — for months,” was the really alarming response of Miss Biffles.

XXIX.

Late in the evening there was a discussion in the Payson household concerning the Biffles-Wormly copartnership.

“ I have been pumping the man a little,” stated Dr. Macklin. “ They are a very queer pair, — the queerest pair since Adam and Eve. They have no interpreter and no regular servant. They seem to get about from village to village by a series of providences. ”

“ I hope Providence will mercifully lead them hence erelong,” murmured Mr. Payson. “ I have never before seen such a pair myself, and I doubt whether such will be common in the millennium, if one may speak so lightly of that mysterious subject. It is truly dreadful to be thus loaded with farcical feather-heads, when our souls are weak with anxiety and sadness.”

“ The man is pretty sane,” judged the doctor. “ He talks like a veteran of the world. It is very curious that he, the soundest head, apparently, of the two, should be Completely under the thumb of Miss Biffles. Perhaps she furnishes the money. And yet he seems to have plenty of piastres, and has n't hinted at a loan, I can’t make anything out of it. All I can say is, There are two more of them.”

“ Yes, the Holy Land swarms with queer bodies,” sighed Payson. “ I sometimes think that it has more fools in it than it had in the time of Elijah, when all but seven thousand bowed the knee to Baal. May Heaven preserve all our wits! We need every spark that we have. In one sense, indeed, the whole earth is a mad house. How else could the eternal verities be so neglected as they are? ”

“ I wish something could happen to Wormly,” said the doctor. “ He has sense enough to deserve a cowhiding. If I should see a Moslem lay a koorbash across him, I don’t think I should interfere. He is n’t the kind of Christian whom I take an interest in protecting.”

“ We must guard against uncharity.” Of course it was Payson who said this. “ We must not shoot incriminations in the dark. They are simple, mistaken souls. There my judgment Stops.”

“ The woman is n’t simple enough not to know better,” put in Mrs. Payson, with a tartness unusual in her. “ She is cheapening her own sex, and ought to be told so plainly,” she added, glancing hortalively at her husband.

“ No, no, my dear,” smiled her Achilles. “ I am not equal to facing a female millenarian. She would surely get the better of me, and read me her essay on the second advent. I will not suffer my reason and my convictions and my feelings to be trifled with by a monomaniac. Her creed is a burlesque of true faith, and I will not run the risk of listening to it.”

“ Turn them out,” counseled the doctor. “ Get them headed for Treblous, and send them over Mechmel. There is no war in Northern Lebanon.”

“ There maybe robbery and murder,” said Payson. “ But we will inquire. I will go to the chief of tlie muleteers. If it appears that the road through Ehdeu is safe, I will mention it to our bewildered friends, and counsel them to depart while they can.”

From his expedition after news he returned with a sorrowful countenance.

“ I learn that the sword is devouring on every side,” he stated. “ Hasbeya and Deir el Kamr are besieged by the Druzes, who are getting the upper hands everywhere. The number of villages and hamlets burned is said to be more than fifty. Hundreds of Maronites have been slain: one of the muleteers put it at thousands, but that I will not believe. It is what I expected. How could those priest-ridden Christians, without natural leaders or martial experience, contend against a race led by a warlike feudal nobility? I see how it will end. The Maronites will be beaten everywhere, — I fear, slaughtered everywhere. Put our people, our dear native believers, are so far safe, and will probably so continue. Nor do I hear of any Franks being molested. To us, at least, the Father of mercies has been very gracious. Still,” he added, “ we cannot send away our guests as yet. The Nusareyeh are in a ferment, and they are a wild, ignorant people, you know. They might molest even foreigners. Our poor friends must abide with us till better news arrives.”

A few days later came a letter from Mr. Pelton, stating that he was on the eve of departing for Beirut, with all his household and the Payson properties.

“ Our dear girls are safe, by this time,” said Payson. “ I did not fear for Brother and Sister Pelton, but I had some anxieties as to Rufka and Saada, lest they should fall in the way of Moslem insult.”

“ We are a long distance now from friends,” sighed his wife.

“ We are as near to the divine Friend as we ever were,” returned the missionary, with a tranquil smile. “ Perhaps nearer. Nothing need alarm us. By the way, it is strange that Brother Pelton says nothing concerning our youth. I trust that he has not been allowed to wander away among, the battle-fields.”

“ Mr. DeVries went to Mechmel and the Cedars, you know,” said Irene, unwilling to admit that he could be in peril.

Miss Biffles, who had just stalked into the room, inquired, in her awful contralto, “ Did you speak of a Mr. DeVries? ”

“ Mr. Hubertsen DeVries, of Albany,” explained Irene. She felt sure that this horrid woman could not be acquainted with her most noble friend, and desired to put an end to such an impertinent supposition as promptly as possible.

“ I know him,” said Miss Billies in a sepulchral tone, which seemed to light upon the young man’s character like a vampire and suck its very life-blood. “ We ate at the same table when he was a senior in college. I know him.”

Both Mrs. Payson and Dr. Macklin looked at her with an interest which was very near to a request that she would say more.

“ He is one of those young men whom I feel it a duty to expose,” continued Miss Biffles, her dark face reddening with anger over some infuriating reminiscence. “ He is a sly, false, heartless flirt, — a thorough-paced college flirt.”

The countenance of our missionary girl turned as red, and almost as indignant, as that of the believer in the reign of peace and love.

“ When a young man,” continued Miss Biffles, trembling with excitement, “ beguiles a trusting girl into the cemetery at evening, and keeps her there so late that the gates are locked upon them and the police have to get them out with a ladder, and when every student boarding-house in town rings with the adventure, I say it is a shame. I say that young man ought to marry that girl, no matter if he is the son of a millionaire, and she in but ordinary comfortable circumstances.”

There was an embarrassing silence. Irene’s young imagination had a disagreeable vision of a lovely blonde girl, looking up with innocent, confiding eyes into Hubertsen’s face, while he gazed down upon her with an expression of reprehensible coquetry; still it did not seem very, very dreadful, and she was quite as near laughing as crying. Mr. Payson, rubbing his forehead gently, was evidently trying to meditate, so as not to hear Miss Biffles. As for Dr. Macklin and Mrs. Payson, is it possible that they had expected to hear something worse, and were the least bit disappointed? If so, I have no doubt that they were ashamed of the feeling, and put on spiritual sackcloth for it within the next five minutes.

“ Well, now, you know, that sort of thing Will happen occasionally to the best fellows,” put in Mr. Wormly, with a smile which suggested that he remembered some similar adventure. “ Perhaps it was the worst luck in the world for the little girl that the police came. Perhaps she thought so herself. By George! ” continued the old beau, warming with the subject, “ there are girls who are up to arranging a little game of that sort. Of course I don’t mean to insinuate as much concerning any one of the present company,” he added, bowing politely to Mrs. Payson. “ But I was a collegian myself once, and I have n’t forgotten all I learned then,—except, of course, my Greek and Latin. I remember all about the girls of my time, and, by George! some of them knew as much as the fellows, and a good deal more than most of the professors.”

Miss Biffles tried to gorgonize him with her big black eyes, but the wicked old man was looking another way at the moment, and did not turn into stone.

“ It’s one of the entertainments of sweet two and twenty,” he went on, smiling in a dreadfully self-satisfied style, as though he had often been diverted in that wise. “ And the cemetery is the .— excuse the vigorous phrase — the consecrated place for it, — or was, in my time. What I ’d like to know in this case is, How old was the girl? ”

Then he looked at Miss Biffles, and Suddenly dropped his foolish jaw. Her dark, thin face was shaking with excitement, and she was clearly in a fearful rage with him.

“ Oh, I dare say it was a bad affair,” he stammered. “ Miss Biffles undoubtedly knows all about it; she is not accustomed to speak at random. The young man is unquestionably a very sly rogue, and deserves to be exposed from Dan to Beersheba. It must have been a naughty affair.”

Miss Biffles looked blacker than ever. It seemed as though Mr. Wormly had only made bad worse by his concessions and denunciations. Mr. Payson, who knew nothing, and therefore would say nothing, and who felt that all this was poor talk about a poor subject, rose, and slipped off to his study. The doctor — all honor to him for the noble impulse — uttered a word of palliation: —

“ There is a great deal of that sort of trifling in college. It generally amounts to nothing, and comes to nothing.”

Irene gave him a glance of gratitude, and then followed the example of Mr. Payson, marching off to her own bedroom.

There the unpleasant little story came up again, and she went over it bit by bit in her mind, not so much trying Mr. DeVries impartially as endeavoring to find him not guilty. Was be indeed a heartless flirt who trifled with poor girls (like herself), and was capable of leading them into scandalizing situations? Of course the tale was substantially true, or Miss Biffles would not have looked so angry about it. But what did it amount to, and what positive wrong did it involve? Why was it so very outrageous for two young people to promenade a cemetery in the city, when in the country nothing would have been thought of it?

As for the shutting in and the lofty rescue by the police, that was ridiculous, and rather hateful to think of, but nothing more. Perhaps the sexton locked the gates earlier than usual, and perhaps Mr. DeVries did not know that it was the rule to lock them. Of course it must have been pretty late; but very likely he did not specially care to linger thus. It was partly the girl’s fault, as that abominable Mr. Wormly suggested; yes, it was probably the girl’s fault altogether. On the whole, and after the severest meditation over it, the cemetery adventure did not seem a blot on her friend’s character.

But then Mr. DeVries was generally a flirt, — a regular and heartless flirt,— Miss Biffles had said. And that lady had been so exceedingly angered against him, — so much angrier than the simpler facts of her grave-yard history seemed to justify! Was it possible that she had withheld a part of the truth, and that the whole of it was something too bad to tell, or even to think of ? Of a sudden this hitherto unthought-of view of the subject took complete possession of Irene’s vivid imagination. She had an impulse to go at, once to Miss Biffles, and demand of her the entire facts of the dreadful affair. But that, of course, was out of the question. She had no right to inquire into the life of Hubertsen DeVries; and, moreover, she did not want to speak to the horrid, horrid woman. Irene felt — knowing, meanwhile, how wicked it was — that she perfectly hated the old thing.

Ah dear ! she could only keep on brooding; and it was now very wretched business. Had her charming correspondent, been merely flirting with herself when he treated her with such a seeming of delicate respect, and made her that apparently generous offer to send her home? Was he at this moment, perhaps, coquetting with the brilliant-eyed Saada ? Of this last fact there was certainly great danger. The little Syrian was pretty enough to attract any man, and had not been able to conceal her perilous liking for this particular man. “ I would n’t blame him a bit,” said Irene to herself at one moment; and at the next moment she asserted that she would never, never forgive him.

In short, this new view of the matter, to wit, that the grave-yard adventure had not been fully told and that Mr. DeVries was truly a “regular heartless flirt,” would not away from the mind of our young missionary. It is to be feared that she thought less than usual of her duties that evening, and that the watches of the night brought her but a broken and visionary slumber.

XXX

Very shortly after the “ exposure ” of DeVries, Irene received a long letter from that agreeable son of Belial.

It seems that, after visiting Ehden and the Cedars, he had decided to push on to the remarkable land of ruins around Hamath, with the further purpose of going as far north as Aleppo, and then returning by a circuit through Palmyra, Damascus, and Baalbec.

“ And we might have had him here! ” thought, the young lady, her heart throbbing with various emotions. “ How would Miss Biffles have treated him? And how should I ? ”

“ But at Hamath,” the letter proceeded, “ I heard of the war in Lebanon, and of course turned back at once. Palmyra and Baalbec, I knew, would remain; but a war in Lebanon was a transitory wonder. I felt that I must see it.”

“ Oh, how could he! ” thought Irene, her heart heating again, this time because of his rashness. She turned to the end at once, fearing lest she might not find his name there, and lest the epistle might have a sad postscript, in some other hand. But there was the well-known autograph, and the sight of it filled her with gladness, no matter what Miss Biffles might say of the signer. Then, before she could go on with her reading, she had to lay the letter on her lap for a moment, and reprove herself for her flurries and foolishness.

We will condense this rather lengthy epistle, and add to it some essential facts omitted by the writer. DeVries made his return journey from Hamath to Bhamdun as speedily as possible, and immediately called on the Peltons to ask if they needed his protection or assistance. They were shocked, of course, when they learned his purpose of visiting the scene of combat., and sought to deter him by representing that he might fall a victim to some sanguinary misapprehension. He replied that he wanted to form an idea of Syrian warfare; that it was probably not very different from the fighting of early Hebraic times; that a view of it would help him in the military portions of his Philistine history. Mr. Pelton controverted this theory with pardonable petulance; but nevertheless the farewells were said in a spirit of friendliness.

And here DeVries left out a little circumstance which seems to accord with Miss Biffles’s summary of his character. He found tin opportunity, or perhaps one was found for him, to bid a lonely good-by to Saada. The pretty little Syrian begged him not to go to the war, and cried like a child when he remained immovable. Of course, he was exceedingly grateful and otherwise tenderly moved, and could not remember to be cautious in offering thanks and consolations. The result was a far more emotional parting than he had proposed, — a parting which made him resolve, an hour later, that he would keep away from Bhamdun, at least while Saada remained there. That night the girl did not sleep at all, and the next day she was a little out of her head with fever, babbling drowsily at times in a way which made Mrs. Pelton stare.

But of this the young man knew nothing; he was already nigh unto the battle. His description of the siege of Deir el Kamr was long, but seemed to Irene breathlessly interesting: —

“ Before I came in sight of the town I began to discover signs of war. Bands of Druzes marched swiftly by me, singing their war-song, “ Ma hala, ya ma hala, kotal en Nasara! ’ It means, as you know as well as I, How sweet, oh, how sweet, to kill the Christians! Yet as they passed me they stopped singing for a moment, and saluted me civilly, if not cordially. I perfectly understood ‘ Naharkum saeed ’ (May your day be blest) and ‘ Naharak abyad ’ (May your day be white). It was obvious that they took me for an Englishman, and therefore for a well-wisher, if not an ally.

“ I saw the fight from a hill near the town, and about two hundred yards from the nearest combatants. The houses on that side were scattered, and formed a loose suburb, very suitable for attack. But they were well garrisoned : the Maronites fired heavily from the doors and windows ; others stood behind them, in clusters, as reserves. The Druzes, headed by their richly - dressed sheiks, assaulted in splendid style. It was impossible, Christian as I am, not to admire their gallantry, and to be sorry to see them fall so fast.

“ There was no general attack, no line of battle, apparently no system. But all the rocks and shrubberies around the place were ambushes for sharp-shooters, who kept up a continual pattering of musketry. Every now and then a party of twenty, or fifty, or a hundred, would spring up from cover, and make a dash at full speed for one of the solid little stone houses. There would be a tremendous rattle of shots, mixed with howling war-cries and shrieks of the wounded. If the attack was strong enough, the Maronites rushed off to the nearest shelter, one or two generally dropping on the way, while the Druzes poured into their conquest, and opened fire from it.

“ It was slow, hard, and bloody work for the assailants. I could see that they had several men to carry away after every onset, while the defenders, owing to their excellent cover, lost very few. In this fashion the fight went on the entire day, without much result except in the way of dead and wounded. Five or six houses only were captured, and it was not enough to make any impression on the place, as appeared by the fact that at night-fall the Druzes gave up their prizes and retreated beyond musket-shot. I should think that they must have lost at least one hundred and fifty men in this long and stubborn skirmish. At all events, their hospital parties were very busy during the day, and I counted seventy dead and wounded in one hollow, just below my point of observation.

“ To me personally nothing happened, except that the bullet of some blundering Maronite struck a shelf of rock over my head and dropped flattened at my feet. This warning sufficed for a novice, and I promptly made my way down to the sheltered hollow where the wounded lay, and passed the afternoon in peeping at the combat from there. The scene just around me was a horrible one.

I will tell you nothing about it; it was too horrible. Nor will I describe the savage and abominable massacre which stained the final triumph of the Druzes. What it must have been you can imagine from the fact that nearly two thousand men were slaughtered in cold blood.

“ Of course, I saw but little of it, and had small chance to interfere. I did what I could to save the few whom I could get at. I shouted and pleaded and ran about (really, I hardly remember much what happened), until I was knocked down by somebody, and then dragged to a distance by a party of striped miscreants, and finally rescued by a dark, stern-faced young man in blue broadcloth, who proved to be one of the sheiks of the Telhook family. By this time everything was over, as I suppose; and, at all events, I was glad to mount and get away. My head ached smartly with the rap, but was all right in a day or two.

“ Since writing the above, I have been visiting the burned districts, and trying to relieve the helpless, starving inhabitants. Excuse me for speaking of it; I wish you to think well of me.”

Think well of him! Of course she thought well of the hero of humanity. For the moment she did not care if he had been shut up in forty cemeteries with as many young lady friends of Miss Biffles. Moreover, although the process of reasoning would have been hard to follow, she had somehow arrived at the conclusion that the heroine of that adventure was herself a flirt, who would not be harmed by a great deal of incarceration. The best of us are occasionally hasty and unfair in judging a person who has given us, even though unawares, some uncomfortable hours.

In her admiration for her most noble correspondent, and in her desire to justify him to the Paysons, she read them his letter. Several times during the description of the battle Mr. Payson exclaimed, “ Ah, what was the lad there for!” But when he had heard all,— the struggle to save the victims of massacre, and the labors to relieve the houseless and starving, —he smiled with angelic tenderness, and said, “ I hope and dare to believe-that this youth was brought into the world for the good of his kind and the glory of his Maker.”

“ I wish I could have been with him,” groaned the doctor. “ Probably I could have helped him do more. A few words in Arabic might have quieted some of those madmen.”

“ We are at our own post,” replied Payson. “ That is my comfort. More-

over, we may yet have perils and labors here. This city is boiling with evil passions. It is a wicked population.”

Just then Miss Biffles and Mr. Wormly entered the room, the former holding in her hand a thin, printed pamphlet, and wearing on her countenance an expression of stern resolution, as of one who came to execute judgment, and not mercy.

It must be understood, by the way, that the pair had made themselves thoroughly at home in the mission dwelling. Mr. Wormly, indeed, expressed his gratitude daily for its hospitality, and stated, with elaborate polish of diction, that it would remain forever unforgotten. But Miss Biffles neither returned thanks nor apologized for giving trouble. She used the house as her own, and made no recompense save in lecturing on the second advent, maintaining with exasperating consistency that it was now upon earth, war and massacre to the contrary notwithstanding.

“ Since you are all together,” she now said, bowing around the room as if from a platform, “I will read to you an essay on the presence of the reign of peace.”

“Madam, I must respectfully decline to hear it,” responded Mr. Payson, in a tone of decision which made everybody stare, especially those who knew him best.

“ I should like to have your reasons, sir,” said Miss Biffles. She tried to smile, but only succeeded in looking vicious, like a horse who shows his teeth.

“ The subject pains my religious sense,” continued the clergyman, solemnly. “ I have endeavored hitherto to evade and fly from a discussion of it. As that is not sufficient, I now avail myself of my rights as head of this household, and respectfully request you to let the matter pass in silence.”

“ You were just reading your own pamphlets together,” the lady began to argue.

“We were listening to a letter,” replied Payson, “ a letter which has filled us with great sadness and horror; a letter announcing the scattering of one of our missions, and the slaughter of hosts of our fellow-creatures; a letter which leaves us no heart for trifling and wild argumentation.”

“Ah, indeed! who was the letter from?” asked Mr. Wormly, the chirping old grasshopper, whether to change the conversation, or out of mere gossipy interest.

“ From a generous young friend of ours, who has imperiled his own life to save others,—from Mr. DeVries, ” said Payson.

Miss Biffles was capable of comprehending this speech in but one way. She understood it as an attack upon herself, — as part of a premeditated quarrel with her.

“ So that is the kind of man you admire!” she retorted, springing to her feet with an agility which was quite wonderful in so tall a person. “ A heartless, faithless, silly male flirt! Mr. Wormly, I wish you would go out at once and find new lodgings, no matter where. We have been here long enough. ’ ’

Mr. Wormly, who had become exceedingly interested in Miss Grant, looked piteously unwilling to depart. But as there was some gentility in him, he saw that longer abiding in the Payson house would be an indecorum, and he rose to do as he was bidden.

“ I will go with you,” volunteered Payson, all his usual gentleness returning at once. “ You will get along poorly in this city without Arabic.”

“ Thanks. — a thousand thanks. You are exceedingly good, sir,” said Wormly, “Very sorry for all this, I assure you,” he added, as soon as they were out of the house. “ Miss Biffles is quite wrong to insist upon ramming down her views in this way. A very excellent person; but you know how women are; hang it, every man knows! Enthusiastic and obstinate,—extraordinarily obstinate. She ought to keep her views to herself in the mansion of hospitality. We owe you a thousand thanks for your kindness. ”

“ Don’t mention it,” returned Payson. “ I am sorry for this disagreement. You are welcome to all that we have done.”

“ Pretty warm weather ! ” panted Wormly, after a few rods of smart walking. “ Do you think we shall find rooms at the hotel? ”

“ I trust so,” replied the missionary. And so it turned out, easily enough; and the odd pair were in them before night.

“ Drop in and see us,” said Wormly to Payson, after the latter had brought about a comfortable moving. “ You will find Miss Biffles as pleasant as ever tomorrow. I know her, — headstrong, but good-hearted; just like all women, you know. My compliments to your charming lady and that lovely Miss Grant. I shall call on you frequently.”

“ The babes in the wood,” murmured Mr. Payson, as he walked away. “ Perhaps I did wrong to be so positive with them. Greater patience might have been blest, even to those wayward and tottering minds.”

In the mean time, the veteran of society praised himself for having been so genteelly patient with the missionary, and thought of him as an inexperienced, simple man, troubled with a fretful temper. There is no end to the absurd variety of views which we human beings get of ourselves and each other.

XXXI.

In a day or two came more news about the hero of Deir el Kamr, this time in a letter to Mrs. Parson from Mrs. Pelton.

‘‘I must tell you something which will cause you great anxiety and annoyance,” wrote the latter lady. “ I would not speak of it, only that Saada is one of your girls, and was confided by you to our care.

“ We are much troubled about her in more ways than one. She is not well. We have noticed for weeks that she was very pale at times, and then feverish, and all the while growing thinner. Rufka, who is terribly frightened about her, has at last confessed to us that the child is love-sick. Of course I wanted to know who. Rufka cried, and refused to tell. Then I rummaged a little in my memory, and called to mind that I had found Saada in tears the afternoon of Mr. DeVries’s departure to Deir el Kamr, and also that she was taken with a sharp feverish turn that very night, talking in a wild way during her disturbed sleep.

“ All this I immediately put to Rufka. You must understand that I was much alarmed. I did not know how far matters had gone; I felt that I must know. Well, after much crying and saying that she had promised Saada never to tell, poor Rufka gave up her secret. I am really pained to repeat it to you. Mr. DeVries has repeatedly kissed Saada. It is too bad. We had thought so much of him; and now, to take advantage of our innocent, silly child, — it is too bad!

“ Of course he means nothing. He doesn’t mean to marry her, — that is, I suppose not; how could he? He would probably say that he meant no harm, and that it is all a trifle, not worth making a fuss about.

“ That may do in America, where girls learn to go alone; but Syrian girls are not used to hoidening; it addles their hot, foolish heads. I must say that I feel bitterly about it, and think that our handsome young friend has behaved ill, and want to give him a smart scolding. It is such a disappointment that I could cry over it. I had thought him an absolutely perfect gentleman. And here he abuses the power which his manners and person give him, just like any one else, — just like all men, perhaps. Oh dear! he has broken another of my ideals. However, I must stop talking of my own feelings, and go on about poor Saada. Her case is really a serious one. She is pale and thin, and absorbed and anxious. I am afraid she will go into a decline, or have a dangerous fever. Of course Dr. Anson’s powders are of no more use to her than the paper they are wrapped up in.

“ Meanwhile, here we are in this stifling Beirut, instead of on the breezy mountain. What are we to do with the child? She evidently thinks of nothing but Mr. DeVries. What are we to do with him ? Shall I write to him and tell him never to see Saada again? Shall I urge him to marry her? Of course he ought not to do that unless he really loves her. It would be a sacrifice which would make him unhappy for life, and would perhaps end in her unhappiness. It is not to be thought of. Besides, he has done so little, he would say. Two or three kisses, — no talk about love or marriage, — what right had she to go wild about it? That would be a young man’s defense; and it would suffice for a young man, as I suppose.

“ On the whole, I am dreadfully puzzled, and I want a word of counsel. You, who know Saada better than I, and who have more influence over her, you must advise me, or her. I have not told Mr. Pelton. He would be ascetically severe, and would write instantly to the young gentleman, and perhaps do mischief. Can you confide it to your husband? I hate to trouble the good, sweet man. Do what you think best about that, my dear; but be sure to write me your advice, and at once.”

“Oh dear!” groaned Mrs. Payson, crying all alone over this dreadful revelation. “ I did n’t think of that. Why must he go and make himself the misery of Saada? I wish he had taken Irene, and done with it. It would have been the best thing of the two. ”

She was a very sensible woman, it will be perceived. It was evident to her at the first glance that the loss of Irene would be a lesser evil than a love tragedy in the mission circle. She now repressed her tears, and set herself to thinking what should be done, meanwhile wishing heartily that she had a counselor. To her husband she would not rehearse the story, because she knew that it would grieve him inexpressibly, and also because she believed that no man’s advice in heart matters is worth much. To the doctor it would be indecorous, as well as useless, to mention it.

But a confidant, an adviser, a helper, she must have. The curious result was that, after doubting and trembling over the idea for a while, she sought out Irene, and threw the letter into her lap. The young lady glanced through it in silence, and turned as pale as living women ever do.

“ What is to be done about it? ” asked Mrs. Payson, just a little heartlessly. She saw that the girl suffered; but that would not have been had she properly cared for Dr. Maeklin; consequently, the anguish served her right. Such was Mrs. Payson’s way of feeling in the first agitated moments of this remarkable dialogue.

“ What are we to do about it? ” she repeated, getting no answer to her first query.

“ I never will speak to him again!” replied Irene, in a smothered, panting voice.

“ I think that you had better speak to him a great deal,” said Mrs. Payson. She had fully decided, by this time, that if Mr. DeVries must make love to somebody, and if as a handsome young man he must he humored therein, he had better take Miss Grant.

I never will,” insisted Irene, and at once began to cry, of course with indignation.

The elder lady tittered hysterically, and then shed a tear or two herself. After a few seconds of this, they suddenly looked up in each other’s faces, and both burst into a spasmodic laugh. It was a gurgling sort of noise, without a bit of merriment in it.

“ I think it is perfectly outrageous,” declared Irene, making a desperate effort to control her nervousness,

“ So do I,” saidMrs. Payson. “ And I wish you would put a stop to it.”

“ What have I to do with it? ” answered the girl. “ What can I do? ”

Mrs. Payson giggled once more. She did not mean to be so trivial, but she found it difficult to express herself, and she was still very shaky.

“I will never write to him again,” affirmed Irene. “ Never speak to him, if I can help it.”

“I wish you would do both,” returned the married lady positively. “I wish you would make eyes at him,” she added, bursting into a cheerful feminine laugh.

Then the paleness suddenly vanished from Miss Grant’s face before a great flood of color. She sat for a moment with wide - open eyes, like a person charmed by a mighty temptation. At last a frown came upon her brow, —the frown of one who is conscious of deep injury, —and she suddenly stormed out, “ I won’t! ”

‘‘ Irene, I am perfectly serious about it. I think it is the best thing for all of us. I think it would end well. I wish you would.”

“ I - WON’T.”

“ Why, Irene! what a temper! I did n’t know you had a temper.”

“ It is so outrageous! He ought to marry her. ” And here there was a sob which nearly made Mrs. Payson smile.

“ He will never marry her, Irene. What can a rich and educated American do with a poor Mount. Lebanon girl, who knows scarcely five hundred words of English, and knows nothing else? He ought not to marry her. It would make them both miserable.”

“ I can’t talk about it,” said Irene, beginning to gasp again, and starting up to leave the room.

“ Don’t tell anybody,” the elder lady called after her. “ Don’t worry my husband with it.”

“ Oh, no!” exclaimed virtuous indignation. He would think Mr. DeVries perfectly hateful.”

Mrs. Payson smiled intelligently over this speech, and immediately sat down to write to Mrs. Pelton. In these matters of the heart she was not the hesitating, dilatory creature which she sometimes seemed, but had a truly feminine promptness of decision and energy of action.

“I must be short,” she scribbled. “ Do keep Saada away from Mr. DeVries. Send her up to the mountain, if you can. I understand that the station at Abeih has not been abandoned. Send her up into the Lebanon air. If he comes, tell him yourself that he must not see her, and tell him why. She will get over it in time. You know that we do get over such things. I could tell you something about my own girlhood; but you can imagine it. Burn this letter. Kiss Saada for me, and tell her that we all love her, and want her to go to the mountain. I would write more, but we are dreadfully occupied in mind with the state of this city, which threatens an outbreak at any moment. Do keep Saada away from Mr. DeVries. The girl is too pretty and too innocent and too headlong. I am sorry for her, but she must not see him. Our truest love to her and to all of you.”

As for Irene, she spent the rest of the day alone, as miserable, at least, as she had any right to be. She began three letters to DeVries, saying in various ways that their correspondence must now end, and tore them all up in succession. Probably she had no intention of sending them, and merely wrote as an outlet for her emotions. It is a comfort to have a confidant, though that confidant be but a sheet of paper. As to actually reproving this young gentleman, what business was it of hers? He was not her lover, — she said that to herself scores of times; nor was he a relative; only a friend.

Then she declared, of course, that he was a friend no longer; that he had ill treated Saada, and abused hospitality, and behaved shamefully; that no missionary girl could treat him otherwise than as a mere acquaintance. Miss Biffles’s charge that he was a heartless flirt could be denied no longer. Probably he had been in any number of foolish, ridiculous scrapes with young ladies. Oh, how dreadful he was! How disgusted she was with him! How her disturbed mind and wounded heart exaggerated his wrong-doing and her own condemnation of it! There was no end to her miserable broodings until midnight brought slumber. In the morning she had other matters to think of.

At this time Damascus contained a population of one hundred and ten thousand Moslems, twenty-five thousand Christians of all sects, and fifteen thousand Jews, besides some six thousand Christian refugees. The Moslems had long been in a state of intense fanatical excitement over the religious war. Even the elders and gentry of the city were moved to feel and publicly declare that the time had come to punish the enemies of the true faith. A rabble of many races was ready to shed blood at any moment. The coffee-houses were full of noisy armed men, Koords, Bedaween, Druzes, Metawilch, and Damascene desperadoes. Christians were insulted in every street of the sacred city, and stones were thrown at the houses of Frank residents and officials. The consuls went in a body to the pasha, and demanded that he should insure the public peace. Like a Turk, he promised everything, and, still like a Turk, he did nothing, or worse than nothing.

On Sunday, the 8th of July, old Yusef, Mr. Payson’s cook, came in with the news that gangs of Moslems were patrolling the Christian quarter, drawing figures of crosses in the mud and dust of the streets, and forcing the Christians to trample upon them. The day at the mission house was passed in sombre expectation that the rioting would spread through the city. Dr. Macklin recapped his pistol, and prepared to die arms in hand. Mr. Payson walked about silently, apparently engaged in mental prayer. The women packed up a few things by way of preparation for flight. But the day, and the night following also, passed off in quiet.

On Monday, a little after noon, the doctor ventured forth alone, purposing to visit the American vice-consul and get exact news of the situation. In less than an hour he returned breathless, and said to Payson, “ Damascus has gone mad.”

The clergyman stared at him with a pallid face and without speaking, as people do in the first moments of a great horror.

“ The pasha punished those rioters,” Macklin went on. “ They were sent in chains, right by the great mosque, to sweep the Christian quarter. I saw them myself. And then I had to run for my life. The whole Moslem rabble broke out in a howl of fury. I never Could have imagined such a scene. The entire city seemed to go mad at once. The streets filled with armed men, rushing every way, and shouting, ‘ To arms, ye Islam! Death to the Giaours!’ Of course they were chiefly intent on finding the native Christians, or I never should have got here. As it was I was smartly stoned. We must look to our women.”

“ I will go and prepare them,” was Payson’s only reply.