"I pray the Virgin every day," she said, "that you may be very happy, happy in all that is best, and in all that the soul and the heart desire; happy, dear friend, as you deserve. And, indeed, I think that is not a little." The girl sat with down-dropped eyes. "Is the Virgin as generous as you, I wonder?" she said. "You know the worst of me, Suleima; I think I have told you the worst; yet how can you think I deserve happiness?" "You have told me the worst," said Suleima. "Yet what if I find the whole very good? Is that my fault? Not so; your own. Ah, dearest friend, I have no tongue to tell you how fully--" and she broke off. "It is best said in a word," she continued, "and that is that I love you; and thus all is said. And the blessed Mother of God is more loving than I. Let that suffice." The child thrust out an aimless, fat-fingered hand and pawed the Capsina's face. "Cap-sin-a! Cap-sin-a!" it crowed in a voice of staccato rapture. The girl put out her arms suddenly and lifted the baby to herself. "Yet Capsina is a wicked girl," she whispered, bending over it, "and she hates herself. But she will grow better in time, or so we hope. In time even she may not be ashamed to look her friends in the face." Suleima laid her hand on her knee. "Ah, don't, don't!" she said. "Indeed you are talking nonsense." The Capsina kissed the baby, and gave it back to its mother. "You are right; I won't," she said, rising and giving herself a little shake. "And now I must go. I have many things to arrange in Nauplia to-night, for the _Revenge_ must set off to-morrow. Tell little Mitsos we shall pass here and call for him by midday." She held Suleima's two hands for a long moment in her own, gave her a quick, trembling little kiss, and went off down the garden-path and mounted her pony at the gate.