good deal of Sarah when I visited Abraham with my master Alexander, and
I have seen many more beautiful women since that time. Hagar was a fine
woman, but she was too dark, and her face had an anxious expression which
interfered with her beauty."

"Was Hagar really the wife of Abraham," I asked, "as the Mussulmans say,
and was Ishmael considered his heir?"

"When I saw them," my host continued, "the two women seemed as friendly
as sisters, and Isaac was not yet born. At that time it was considered,
of course, that Ishmael was Abraham's heir. Certainly he was a much finer
man than Isaac, with whom I became acquainted a long time afterward. There
were some very beautiful women at the court of Solomon. One of these was
Balkis, the famous Queen of Sheba."

"Did you ever meet Cleopatra?" I interrupted.

"I never saw her," was the answer, "but, from what I have heard, I do
not think I should have cared for her if I had seen her asleep. What might
have happened had I seen her awake is quite another matter. I have noticed
that women grow more beautiful as the world grows older, and men grow
taller and better developed. You would consider me, I think, a man of
average size; but I tell you that in my early life I was exceptionally
tall, and I have no doubt it was my stature and presence to which
I largely owed my preferment at the court of Alexander. I was living in
Spain toward the close of the tenth century, when I married the daughter
of an Arabian physician, who was a wonderfully beautiful woman. She was
not dark, like the ordinary Moorish women. In feature and form she
surpassed any creation of the Greek sculptors, and I have been in many of
their workshops, and have seen their models. This lady lived longer than