ar. He had one who has been thirteen years his housekeeper, an
old bedaweeyeh, I believe, and as I now am no longer looked upon as a
foreigner, I shall be able to get a respectable Arab woman, a widow or a
divorced woman of a certain age who will be too happy to have 'a good
home,' as our maids say. I think I know one, a certain Fatoomeh, a widow
with no children who does washing and needlework in Cairo. You need not
be at all uneasy. I shall be taken good care of if I fall ill, much
better than I should get from a European in a sulky frame of mind.
Hajjee Ali has very kindly offered to take Marie down to Cairo and start
her off to Alexandria, whence Ross's people can send her home. If she
wants to stay in Alexandria and get placed by the nuns who piously
exhorted her to extort ninety francs a month from me, so much the better
for me. Ali refuses to take a penny from me for her journey--besides
bringing me potatoes and all sorts of things: and if I remonstrate he
says he and all his family and all they have is mine, in consequence of
my treatment of his brother.

You will be amused and pleased to hear how Sheykh Yussuf was utterly
puzzled and bewildered by the civilities he received from the travellers
this year, till an American told Mustapha I had written a book which had
made him (the American) wish well to the poor people of this country, and
desire to behave more kindly to them than would have been the case
before.

To-morrow is the smaller Bairam, and I shall have all the Hareem here to
visit me.

Two such nice Englishmen called the other day and told me they lived in
Hertford Street opposite Lady D. G.'s and saw Alexander go in and out,
and met Maurice in the gardens. It gave me a terrible twinge of
_Heimweh_, but I thought it so kind and pretty and _herzlich_ of them to
come and tell me how Alexander and Maurice looked as they went along the
street.

February 22, 1866: Mrs. Ross

_To Mrs. Ross_.

_February_ 22, 1866.

DEAREST JANET,

I received your letter of the 4th inst. yesterday. I am much distressed
not to hear a better account of you. Why don't you go to Cairo for a
time? Your experience of your German confirms me (if I needed it) in my
resolution to have no more Europeans unless I should find one 'seasoned.'
The nuisance is too great. I shall borrow a neighbour's slave for my
stay here and take so