The "Capsina's Own" cheered wildly when the camel was brought to anchor and she slid down out of the howdah.
"Oh, stop laughing!" she cried to Mitsos. "Indeed, you will not laugh when you are up there. But I would have it; it looks so grand. Hark! How it groans! Am I not like some barbarous queen?"
And she gave him a great poke in the ribs, and was half-way up the garden-path to meet Suleima.
"And I have come with a light heart," she cried, "and a heavy one—heavy to go and blithe to go. Where is the child? Let him say 'Capsina,' please, so. And it is good-bye."
The two turned and walked a few paces away.
"To-day I have a light heart," said the girl, "such as I have not had for months. Indeed, I think you have laid a spell on me. I am not going to be wicked any more; indeed I am not. Where is Mitsos? Come here, lad; we will say good-bye together."
Mitsos came up the path to them, and the three stood hand-in-hand. In the middle of them the child sat on the ground, chuckling and babbling to itself.
"Pick it up, Mitsos, and lay it on your arm," said the girl. "So; it is complete."
She stood there a moment smiling, but with dimmed eyes, fresh, vivid, alert, looking first at Mitsos and the baby, then at the mother.
"So we part with a smile and with love," she said, "and there is no parting." And she kissed the baby, and clung awhile round Suleima's neck, and then, disengaging herself, stood looking at her a moment more.