th her rosary of beads. The blaze of sunshine is round her kiosk,
but _she_ sits in the softened shadow so dear to the painter's eye. And
so she dreams away the warm hours in such a calm of thought within, and
sight or sound without, that she starts when the gold-fish gleam in the
fountain, or the breeze-ruffled roses shed a leaf upon her
bosom."--Eliot Warburton, "The Crescent and the Cross," etc. etc.

As European gentlemen are never admitted to the harem, it is hardly
credible that Major Warburton could have had an opportunity of seeing
the beauty which he paints in such glowing colours.

MADAME HOMMAIRE DE HELL.

I.

Not only as a persevering and enlightened traveller, but as a poet,
Madame Hommaire de Hell has gained distinction. It is in the former
capacity that she claims a place in these pages.

She was born at Artois, in 1819. While she was still an infant, her
mother died; but it was her good fortune to find in the love of an only
sister no inadequate substitute for maternal affection. Her father seems
to have been one of those individuals whom Fortune tosses to and fro
with pertinacious ill-humour; moreover, he had something of the nomad in
his temperament, and without any real or sufficient motive, moved from
place to place, entailing upon his young family sudden and burdensome
journeys. Before Adela was seven years old, she had been carried from
Franche-Comte into the Bourbonnais, thence into Auvergne, and thence to
Paris. She was afterwards placed in a boarding-school at Saint-Maude,
but her father's death restored her to her sister's guardianship at
Saint-Etienne.

A short time after her arrival in this town, she attracted the attention
of Xavier Hommaire de Hell, since so justly celebrated as a traveller
and a scientist. He fell passionately in love with her, and though she
was but fifteen years of age, and had no fortune, he rested not until
his family gave their consent to his marriage.

To provide for his child-wife he obtained an office in the railway
administration, but only temporarily, for already he had made up his
mind to seek fortune and reputation in some foreign country. He pushed
his solicitations with so much energy that, in the first year of his
wedded life, he secured an appointment under the Turkish Government. His
wife, to whom a child had just been given, was unable to accompany him.
The pain of separation was very great, but both knew that in France
there was no presen