But where is the poor little bride all this time? We have neither seen nor heard her all day long, and yet the feast is supposed to be in her honour. All through the long, hot June day she has been cooped up in a tiny room, and as sunset approaches her friends and relations go to dress her and to decorate her from head to foot with jewellery and finery. Into her hair is woven a quantity of golden thread, so that in the distance it looks like a mass of gold, and must be very heavy on the poor tired little head. She is brought out into a large room, and seated on a chair in the middle of it; then every one goes up to her, and after kissing her, says, "May you be blessed." The poor little mite (she might be thirteen years old, but hardly looks it) seems absolutely wretched and miserable, and when food is brought to her refuses to eat. Just at sunset she is taken to her husband's house in a closed carriage, and our hearts must ache as we think of what is in store for her. Even if her husband is kind to her at first, yet she has nothing much to look forward to but misery and degradation, and if by chance she goes to an anderoon already containing two or three wives, then may God take pity on her, for her fate will be a sad one. As soon as a man marries a girl she is absolutely his property, and he may do exactly as he pleases with her; there is no redress for the poor unfortunate girl. If the man is a brute and half kills his wife no one dare say a word to him, or if perchance there is one brave enough, he will only be told that "the girl is his wife, and he can do as he likes with his own," and so it is no wonder if the shadow of the future lies darkly on the faces of those poor little children, as they leave their mother's home as brides to go out into the unknown which lies before them. I remember a poor little girl who was brought to the hospital in Julfa, while we were there. She had been married to a brutal man, when about eleven years old. Being very unhappy with him, she often used to run away and take refuge with her mother, who lived in a village a mile or two away from her husband's house. On many occasions he had beaten her severely for some childish fault, and each time she had fled to her mother, and stayed with her till her husband came and carried her off again by force. This went on for some time, till the poor child's life was nothing but wretchedness and misery. One day she displeased her husband by not cooking the dinner to his liking, and he was so enraged with her that he behaved in the following abominable manner.