The visitor was very kind in her address to Barakah; but, when she held the baby for a minute, looking down at it, the latter, watching keenly, saw upon her face a quiver of extreme disfavour mixed with pity. The whiteness of her hands and face showed the child yellow; Barakah had thought him white as snow till then. A flush of anger and humiliation reached her brain.

“His face is dirty, the poor little one! Our Lord preserve him!” the visitor remarked in Arabic as she returned the baby to his nurse; at which there was an outburst of applause from the onlookers. They called down blessings on the lady’s head, desiring she might have herself a thousand children, not like this one, puny and unpleasant, but most beautiful.

Barakah, consumed with rage, murmured hoarsely in response to Mrs. Cameron’s farewell. The moment she was gone she burst out weeping.

“She did not like the child! She scorned my son, because he is not altogether white as she is.”