uddenly leaped in her hands. She ordered
excavations, and no demon opposed her enterprise. The vast chest in
which the treasure had been deposited was at length discovered; but, lo
and behold! it was full of pebbles! She said, however, that the times
were approaching in which the hidden treasure of the earth would become
available to those who had 'true knowledge.'"

Among the subjects on which Lady Hester discoursed, with equal fluency
and earnestness, were religion and race. On the first head she
announced that the Messiah was yet to come; on the second, she
expressed her low opinion of Norman, and her high opinion of ancient
French, blood. Occasionally she descended to inferior topics, and
displayed her conspicuous abilities as a mimic and satirist. She spoke
of Lord Byron, and ridiculed his petty affectations and sham
Orientalism. For Lamartine she had still less mercy. His morbid self
consciousness and exaggerated refinement of manner, had excited her
contempt. Indeed, she seems to have cherished an abundant scorn of
everything approaching to exquisiteness or "aestheticism."

* * * * *

Next day, at her request, he paid her a second visit. "Really," said
she, when he had taken his seat and his pipe, "we were together for
hours last night, and still I have heard nothing at all of my old
friends; now do tell me something of your dear mother and her sister; I
never knew your father--it was after I left Burton-Pynsent that your
mother married." Kinglake began to furnish the desired particulars; but
his questioner could not long attend to them. She soared away to loftier
topics; so that the second interview, though it lasted two or three
hours, was all occupied by her mystical, theological, transcendental,
necromantical discourse, in which she displayed the expressiveness, if
not the glowing eloquence, of a Coleridge.

In the course of the afternoon, the captain of an English man-of-war
arrived at Djoun, and Lady Hester resolved on receiving him for the
same reason as that which had governed her reception of Mr. Kinglake,
namely, an early intimacy with his family. He proved to be a pleasant
and amusing guest, and all three sat smoking until midnight, conversing
chiefly upon magical science.

"Lady Hester's unholy claim to supremacy in the spiritual kingdom was,
no doubt, the suggestion of fierce and inordinate pride, most perilously
akin to madness; but I am quite sure," says Mr. King