Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/66

 She kissed her grandmother and me, and the old lady kissed us both, and put us to bed. No sooner was she out of the room than Djimlah said:

"Baby mine, I believe the storm has upset you. You have been so quiet all the afternoon—and now you don't even pray."

"I am upset," I replied. "But it isn't the storm—it's you."

She sat up in bed. "Now what have I done to offend you, when you are under my roof?"

"It wasn't under your roof. It was when we were in the open, during the storm."

"That part of the heavenly roof being over grandfather's land is our roof," she corrected me.

"Well, I don't care what you call it, you have offended me."

"But, darling," she cried, "how did I do it? I don't remember it."

"I can't quite explain it; but, although I have been very fond of you, I don't like you to say that you and I are the children of God in the same way, and"

She interrupted me—and it was a pity, too; for at the moment I was getting it quite clear how she was not my equal before God, and afterwards I could not quite get it again.

"But, yavroum, much loved by the stars and the rivers, are we not Allah's children, you and I?"