ad accomplished all that is written on the animal destined to
the honour of carrying the Messiah--"She will be born ready saddled." He
says: "And in truth, I saw, on this beautiful animal, a freak of nature,
rare enough to encourage the illusion of a vulgar credulity among
half-barbarous peoples: instead of shoulders, she had a cavity so broad
and deep, and so exactly imitating the shape of a Turkish saddle, that
one might truthfully say she was born ready saddled, and, with stirrups
at hand, one might readily have mounted her without a saddle." This
magnificent bay mare was the object of profound respect and admiration
on the part of Lady Stanhope and her slaves; she had never been ridden,
and a couple of Arab grooms cared for her and watched her carefully,
never losing sight of her.

* * * * *

A few years later, and the brilliant author "Eoethen," Mr. A. W.
Kinglake, while travelling in the East, made his way to Lady Hester's
Lebanon retreat. She had been the friend of his mother, and consequently
he had no difficulty in obtaining admission.

In the first court which he entered a number of fierce-looking and
ill-clad Albanian soldiers were hanging about the place, a couple of
them smoking their tchibouques, the remainder lying torpidly upon the
flat stones. He rode on to an inner part of the building, dismounted,
and passed through a doorway that led him at once from an open court
into an apartment on the ground floor. There he was received by Lady
Hester's doctor, with a command from the doctor's mistress that her
visitor would rest and refresh himself after the fatigues of the
journey. After dinner, which was of the usual Oriental kind, but
included the wine of the Lebanon, he was conducted into a small chamber
where sat the lady prophetess. She rose from her seat very formally,
uttered a few words of welcome, pointed to a chair placed exactly
opposite to her sofa, at two yards' distance, and remained standing up
to the full of her majestic height, perfectly still and motionless,
until he had taken his appointed position. She then resumed her
seat--not after the fashion of the Orientals--but allowing her feet to
rest on the floor or footstool, and covering her lap with a mass of
loose white drapery.[22]

The woman before him had exactly the person of a prophetess; not,
indeed, of the divine Sibyl, imagined by Dammichino, but of a good,
business-like, practical prophetess, long use