ground.

"I am always young and cheerful," he repeated, softly and dreamily. He
picked a red rose from a bush, placed it between his white teeth, and
turned to conduct them to the white house that stood in the midst of the
garden perhaps a hundred yards away.

"What a nice boy!" said Mrs. Armine.

"He's been my dragoman before. This is our little domain."

Mrs. Armine saw a flat expanse of brown and sun-dried earth, completely
devoid of grass, and divided roughly into sunken beds containing small
orange-trees, mimosas, rose-bushes, poinsettias, and geraniums. It was
bounded on three sides by earthen walls and on the fourth side by the
Nile.

"Is it not beautiful, mees?" said Ibrahim.

Mrs. Armine began to laugh.

"He takes me for a _vieille fille_!" she said. "Is it a compliment,
Nigel? Ibrahim,"--she touched the boy's robe--"won't you give me that
rose?"

"My lady, I will give you all what you want."

Already she had fascinated him. As she took the rose, which he offered
with a salaam, she began to look quite gay.