With all the formality attached to it the reception extended by my aunts at our arrival was vibrating with sincerity and emotion. The dear, dear ladies were patting us and embracing us, their eyes full of tears, with little sighs of delight and whispered prayers of thanksgiving to the Almighty to have thus permitted our reunion under their roof. They took us to the sitting-room where we all sat in a circle, and a general conversation, in which my wife's Turkish had to be helped by my cousin or by myself, started around. My aunts do not speak English but this handicap of language did not prevent the establishment of ties of love and devotion between them and my wife. These bonds in fact developed in the course of time to such a degree that to-day they are as strong as the ties of blood uniting my aunts to me. They took to my wife immediately and wanted to know how she liked Constantinople. Wasn't she missing her country and her sisters? But now she had a new set of sisters and brothers. Their own children would surround her with love and try to make her feel less the absence of her sisters in America and they themselves were my wife's aunts. She had become one with me by her marriage and how would we enjoy staying with them in Erenkeuy? The life here was very quiet, a great change for people coming from America. A few minutes later my uncle came to join the family circle. We all got up respectfully and stood until he sat in his favourite easy-chair. He greeted us with warm words of welcome, in his quiet, unostentatious way. Every one was conscious that the head of the family was now with us, although there was no strain whatsoever. Just a note of deference, that was all. Coffee was served. Then a maid brought us jam on a silver platter and each one took a spoonful, drinking some water immediately after. We exchanged news about the different members of the family and about our friends, talked of the past and of our future plans. At tea time we adjourned to the dining-room and had our tea Turkish fashion: weak, with lemon and plenty of sugar. No toast is served but instead bread and that wonderful white cheese which melts in the mouth. They explained to us that during the war they drank the boiled extract of roasted oats instead of tea or coffee. After the ice was completely broken I had to call on my uncle and my aunts to convince my wife that we were really in a “harem.” I must say that they were very much amused. Of course this was a harem and no man except the members of the family had ever passed its threshold in the days gone by. But that did not mean that my uncle had ever had another wife besides my aunt. They always had lived together ever since the divorce of my second aunt, and my youngest aunt had also lived here always with her husband. They suggested showing my wife the gardens of the harem and we all wandered out together.