from a spring, and the more she spoke the smoother her speech.

"Do you know?" I began again, "that I have been standing a long while
before this deserted yard, and cannot recall whose house stood here, why
they have pulled it down, and what has become of its inhabitants? You
are an aged woman, and have peeped into every corner of our city: you
must have something to tell about it. If you have nothing important on
hand, be kind enough to tell me what you know of the former residents of
the vanished house."

Nurse Hripsime turned her gaze to the vacant yard, and, shaking her
head, said:

"My dear son, the history of that house is as long as one of our
fairy-tales. One must tell for seven days and seven nights in order to
reach the end.

"This yard was not always so desolate as you see it now," she went on.
"Once there stood here a house, not very large, but pretty and
attractive, and made of wood. The wooden houses of former days pleased
me much better than the present stone houses, which look like cheese
mats outside and are prisons within. An old proverb says, 'In stone or
brick houses life goes on sadly,'

"Here, on this spot, next to the fig-tree," she continued, "stood
formerly a house with a five-windowed front, green blinds, and a red
roof. Farther back there by the acacias stood the stable, and between
the house and the stable, the kitchen and the hen-house. Here to the
right of the gate a spring." With these words Nurse Hripsime took a step
forward, looked about, and said: "What is this? the spring gone, too! I