Any one living among these people becomes gradually accustomed to the accepted state of things, especially when one has learned that outside interference only makes matters worse, and it is only now and then when some especially sad or heart-rending thing comes to your knowledge that you realize how truly dreadful the whole system is. The other day I was talking about this with a friend whose knowledge of Mohammedan women had been confined to a few families who on the outside would compare very favorably with Christian families she knew, as regards comfort, cleanliness, and contentment. I agreed with her that there were many of the nominal Christian families where there certainly was great unhappiness. But one must not, in comparing the two, lose sight of the bitterest, darkest side. No Christian woman has to contend with the fact that if her husband wearies of her, or some carelessness displeases him, he is perfectly at liberty to cast her off as he would toss aside an old shoe. In fact he would use the same expression in speaking of his shoe, of a dog, some loathsome object, the birth of a daughter or of his wife,--an expression of apology for referring to such contaminating subjects. Nor does a Christian woman fear that as the years pass and her beauty fades, or her husband prospers, that one day he will cause preparations to be made and bring a new wife home. The Mohammedans have a proverb that a man's heart is as hard as a blow from the elbow, and that his love lasts not more than two months. A Mohammedan friend was telling me of a woman she knew and was fond of. "She was a good wife and mother," she said, "and she was very happy with her two children, a boy and a girl; her husband seemed to love her, for she is not old, and it was a great surprise to her when he told her one day that he was going to marry another wife, for she had forgotten that it might be. He said he would take a separate room for the new wife. She said nothing--what could she say? But he deceived her, for he only took the room for the new wife for one week, and then he brought her to live with the first wife. And now she weeps all the time, and oh! how unhappy they all are! I tell her not to weep, for her husband will weary of her and divorce her." A shadow crossed the face of my friend as she spoke, and I could see she was thinking of her own case, and fearing the fear of all Mohammedan women. "Why did that man take another wife when he was happy and had children?" I asked, for I knew that where there are no children a man feels justified in divorcing his wife, or taking a second, third, or fourth. "He wanted more children. Two were not enough."