Then lifting tenderly in his hand some of the yellow hair, he said: "She was probably very young, scarce twenty." "Were their women fair?" I asked. "They were beautiful," he answered; "with graceful forms and lovely faces; a pleasure to the eye; also were they gay and sprightly with much animation." Thereupon cried Lev-el-Hedyd: "Here are the first words thou hast uttered, O Nōfūhl, that cause me to regret the extinction of this people! There is ever a place in my heart for a blushing maiden!" "Then let thy grief be of short life," responded Nōfūhl, "for Mehrikan damsels were not of that description. Blushing was an art they practised little. The shyness thou so lovest in a Persian maiden was to them an unknown thing. Our shrinking daughters bear no resemblance to these Western products. They strode the public streets with roving eyes and unblushing faces, holding free converse with men as with women, bold of speech and free of manner, going and coming as it pleased them best. They knew much of the world, managed their own affairs, and devised their own marriages, often changing their minds and marrying another than the betrothed." "Bismillah! And men could love these things?" exclaimed Lev-el-Hedyd with much feeling. "So it appears." "But I should say the Mehrikan bride had much the freshness of a dried fig." "So she had," said Nōfūhl; "but those who know only the dried fig have no regret for the fresh fruit. But the fault was not with the maidens. Brought up like boys, with the same studies and mental development, the womanly part of their nature gradually vanished as their minds expanded. Vigor of intellect was the object of a woman's education." Then Lev-el-Hedyd exclaimed with great disgust: "Praises be to Allah for his aid in exterminating such a people!" and he walked away from the bed, and began looking about the chamber. In a moment he hastened back to us, saying: "Here are more jewels! also money!" Nōfūhl eagerly took the pieces. "Money!" he cried. "Money will tell us more than pages of history!" There were silver coins of different sizes and two small pieces of copper. Nōfūhl studied them closely. "The latest date is 1957," he said; "a little less than a thousand years ago; but the piece may have been in circulation some years before this woman died; also it may have been coined the very year of her death. It bears the head of Dennis, the last of the Hy-Burnyan dictators. The race is supposed to have become extinct before 1990 of their era." [Illustration: The Face and Back of One of the Silver Coins.] I then said: "Thou hast never told us, O Nōfūhl! the cause of their disappearance."