evoted to agitation against slavery in Egypt. Perhaps the Civil War in
America, not so many years before, had fired her spirit; perhaps it was
pious enthusiasm; perhaps it was some altruistic sentiment in her which
must find expression; perhaps, as people said, she had had a love affair
in England which had turned out badly. At any rate she had come over
to Egypt with an elderly companion, and, after a short stay at the
Consulate, had begun the career of the evangel. She had now and then
created international difficulty, and Ismail, tolerant enough, had been
tempted to compel her to leave the country, but, with a zeal which took
on an aspect of self-opinionated audacity, she had kept on. Perhaps
her beauty helped her on her course--perhaps the fact that her superb
egotism kept her from being timorous, made her career possible. In any
case, there she was at Assiout, and there she had been for years, and no
accident had come to her; and, during the three months she was at Cairo
every year, pleading against slavery and the corvee, she increased
steadily the respect in which she was held; but she was considered mad
as Gordon. So delighted had Ismail been by a quiet, personal attack she
made upon him, that without malice, and with an obtuse and impulsive
kindness, he sent her the next morning a young Circassian slave, as a
mark of his esteem, begging her through the swelling rhetoric of his
messenger to keep the girl, and more than hinting at her value.
It stupefied her, and the laughter of Cairo added to her momentary
embarrassment; but she kept the girl, and prepared to send her back to
her people.

The girl said she had no people, and would not go; she would stay with
"My Lady"--she would stay for ever with "My Lady." It was confusing, but
the girl stayed, worshipping the ground "My Lady" walked on. In vain My
Lady educated her. Out of hearing, she proudly told whoever would listen
that she was "My Lady's slave." It was an Egyptian paradox; it was in
line with everything else in the country, part of the moral opera boufe.

In due course, the lady came to hear of the English slave-owner, who
ruled the desert-city and was making a great fortune out of the labours
of his slaves. The desert Arabs who came down the long caravan road,
white with bleached bones, to Assiout, told her he had a thousand
slaves. Against this Englishman her anger, was great. She unceasingly
condemned him, and whenever she met Dicky Donovan she delive