Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/50

 dress in one piece, with ample skirts, and a shawl which she let hang gracefully over her shoulders. She was tall and imposing, with the sharp features of the Greeks of Phanar, which perhaps were sharpened during their first two hundred years under Turkish rule. Even in her old age her eyes were as piercing and clear as a hawk's. She carried a cane, and wore silk mittens made by hand; and whenever she met a Turk in the street she muttered exorcizing words, as if he were an evil spirit.

Upon her marriage she had at first gone to live in another community, where the Greek traditions were not so rigidly adhered to. At once she decided that her marriage was providential, and that God had meant her to go to this place to revive the Greek spirit. She undertook her task with a fervour at once patriotic and religious; and she succeeded in her mission, for she made these wayward sheep return rigorously to the fold.

"Go, child!" she now admonished me impatiently. "Don't stand there and stare at me—go fetch your father."

I knew my father did not like to be disturbed in the morning, but I knew also that there was not a human being who did not obey Aunt Kalliroë, so I went and fetched my father.

"Nephew!" she cried, without any greeting, as soon as she saw him, "I will not countenance