It is quite a pretty picture, this, of old-time romance, albeit Khadîjah was fifteen years the senior. She is sitting on the roof surrounded by her maidens, on the watch for the earliest glimpse of the caravan, when a single camel is seen approaching, the rider of which is soon recognized as Mohammed, who has ridden ahead of the caravan to bear his news as quickly as possible. And so, travel-stained, yet flushed with his first success, he is conducted up to the presence of his mistress. 'She was delighted at all she heard: but there was a charm in the dark and pensive eyes, in the noble features, and the graceful form of her assiduous agent which pleased her even {24} more than her good fortune.' And when she had dismissed him with ample wages she did not forget him. Mohammed, too, was heart-whole no longer, and became melancholic and broody. The ways of love are the same all the world over and in all times, but its etiquettes and customs vary. And in those days things in Arabia were not as they are with us to-day, nor as they are now in the East, where, by a strange irony, owing to the very system which Mohammed inaugurated, women are the mere chattels of men, and know no such liberty as that which brought him his best fortune in his young days. For it was Khadîjah that played the first move in the game of courtship, and she played it with a woman's adroitness and discernment. Her sister was her accomplice. 'What is it, O Mohammed, which hindereth thee from marriage?' 'I have nothing in my hands wherewith I might marry,' was his very sensible reply. 'But if haply that difficulty were removed and thou wert invited to espouse {25} a beautiful and wealthy lady of noble birth--wouldest thou not desire to have her?' 'And who might that be?' said Mohammed, warming to her questions. 'It is Khadîjah.' 'But how might I attain unto her?' asked Mohammed. 'Let that be my care,' was the reassuring answer. That was sufficient for him, and the sister returned to Khadîjah, who then lost no time in sending an open message to Mohammed appointing a time when they should meet. Within the year they were married with Arab ceremony by Khadîjah's aged cousin, Warakah, who blessed the union in homely Bedouin language, declaring that Mohammed was 'a camel whose nose would not be struck.' With Mohammed's marriage to Khadîjah, his opportunity, if he were looking for one, would seem to have come. Free from his uncle's patronage, freed, too, from the carping cares of straitened circumstances, or the necessity of working long hours at some small task to earn his daily bread, he had passed to a position of {26} ease and affluence. Henceforth he led no camels or he led his own. He was free to shape his life as he would, while his wealth and new position made him one of the leading men of Mecca.