the solemn thanks of the French Chamber. It seems
probable, however, that it was the Sultan's orders rather than Lady
Hester's which produced the desired effect. In her feud with her
terrible neighbour, the Emir Beshyr, she maintained an undaunted front.
She kept the tyrant at bay; but perhaps the Emir, who, so far as
physical force was concerned, held her in the hollow of his hand, might
have proceeded to extremities if he had not received a severe
admonishment from Stratford Canning at Constantinople. What is certain
is that the ignorant and superstitious populations around her feared and
loved her, and that she, reacting to her own mysterious prestige, became
at last even as they. She plunged into astrology and divination; she
awaited the moment when, in accordance with prophecy, she should enter
Jerusalem side by side with the Mahdi, the Messiah; she kept two sacred
horses, destined, by sure signs, to carry her and him to their last
triumph. The Orient had mastered her utterly. She was no longer an
Englishwoman, she declared; she loathed England; she would never go
there again; and if she went anywhere, it would be to Arabia, to 'her
own people.'

Her expenses were immense--not only for herself but for others, for she
poured out her hospitality with a noble hand. She ran into debt, and was
swindled by the moneylenders; her steward cheated her, her servants
pilfered her; her distress was at last acute. She fell into fits of
terrible depression, bursting into dreadful tears and savage cries. Her
habits grew more and more eccentric. She lay in bed all day, and sat up
all night, talking unceasingly for hour upon hour to Dr. Meryon, who
alone of her English attendants remained with her, Mrs. Fry having
withdrawn to more congenial scenes long since. The doctor was a
poor-spirited and muddle-headed man, but he was a good listener; and
there he sat while that extraordinary talk flowed on--talk that scaled
the heavens and ransacked the earth, talk in which memories of an
abolished past--stories of Mr. Pitt and of George III., vituperations
against Mr. Canning, mimicries of the Duchess of Devonshire--mingled
phantasmagorically with doctrines of Fate and planetary influence, and
speculations on the Arabian origin of the Scottish clans, and
lamentations over the wickedness of servants; till the unaccountable
figure, with its robes and its long pipe, loomed through the
tobacco-smoke like some vision of a Sibyl in a dream. She mi