daily to school, and as soon as he has learned to read is brought home
in triumph on a gaily dressed horse, heading a procession of shouting
schoolfellows, while his pretty sister Fátimah is fast developing into
a maid-of-all-work whom nobody thinks of noticing. And the distinction
widens when Hamed rides in the "powder-play," or is trusted to keep
shop by himself, while Fátimah is closely veiled and kept a prisoner
indoors, body and mind unexercised, distinguishable by colour and
dress alone from Habîbah, the ebony slave-girl, who was sold like a
calf from her mother's side. Yes, indeed, far different paths lie
before the two play-mates, but while they are treated alike, let us
take a peep at them in their innocent sweetness.

Their mother, Ayeshah, went out as usual one morning to glean in the
fields, and in the evening returned with two bundles upon her back;
the upper one was to replace crowing Hamed in his primitive cradle: it
was Fátimah. Next day, as Ayeshah set off to work again, she left her
son kicking up his heels on a pile of blankets, howling till he should
become acquainted with his new surroundings, and a little skinny mite
lay peacefully sleeping where he had hitherto lived. No mechanical
bassinette ever swung more evenly, and no soft draperies made a better
cot than the sheet tied up by the corners to a couple of ropes, and
swung across the room like a hammock. The beauty of it was that,
roll as he would, even active Hamed had been safe in it, and all his
energies only served to rock him off to sleep again, for the sides
almost met at the top. Yet he was by no means dull, for through a hole
opposite his eye he could watch the cows and goats and sheep as they
wandered about the yard, not to speak of the cocks and hens that
roamed all over the place.

At last the time came when both the wee ones could toddle, and Ayeshah