The grey-bearded priest, with full brown eyes, and hair that curled below the tall black head-dress like a trimming of grey astrakhan, with whom I had been talking so familiarly, was no other than the successor of St.James, the Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem.

I had supposed him some sub-prior or domestic chaplain.

His Beatitude acknowledged my surprise by an ironic grin.
The new arrival, still upon his knees, embarked on a long story, told in lamentable tones, about a man who was in love, and like to die of it, with a young girl who was the sister of his brother's wife.

It is forbidden by the canons of the Eastern Church for two brothers to marry two sisters.
'Is there no way by which he may obtain her lawfully ?' the suppliant asked.
The Patriarch assumed an air of weariness, and shook his head.
'If he were a Catholic or a Protestant he could obtain her lawfully.' The Patriarch assumed an air of pitying scorn.
'The case is very hard,' the suppliant moaned, as he rose up from the ground at last and cleaned his knees.
The Patriarch, with a shrug, remarked that it was so.

The young man should not have cast eyes upon a maid unlawful to him.
'The only way,' he said, 'is to obtain annulment of the brother's marriage by proving it to be illegal in some way.' With that he left the subject and resumed his talk concerning poultry.