sofa pillow—turned it suddenly, as if she was in
pain.

"Are you not well, mamma," asked Magdalen.

"Quite well, my love," said Mrs. Vanstone,
shortly and sharply, without turning round.
"Leave me a little—I only want rest."

Magdalen went out with her father.

"Papa!" she whispered anxiously, as they
descended the stairs. "You don't think Mr.
Clare will say No?"

"I can't tell beforehand," answered Mr.
Vanstone. "I hope he will say Yes."

"There is no reason why he should say
anything else—is there?"

She put the question faintly, while he was
getting his hat and stick; and he did not appear
to hear her. Doubting whether she should
repeat it or not, she accompanied him as far as
the garden, on his way to Mr. Clare's cottage.
He stopped her on the lawn, and sent her back
to the house.

"You have nothing on your head, my dear,"
he said. "If you want to be in the garden,
don't forget how hot the sun is—don't come out
without your hat."

He walked on towards the cottage.

She waited a moment, and looked after him.
She missed the customary flourish of his stick;
she saw his little Scotch terrier, who had run out
at his heels, barking and capering about him
unnoticed. He was out of spirits: he was
strangely out of spirits. What did it mean?

   MRS. MOHAMMED BEY "AT HOME."

WOMEN travelling in the East have one
advantage over male voyagers, and that is in the
power of entering into the penetralia of the
harem (pronounced hahrém, or sometimes
hahrum), if an opportunity for so doing be afforded
them.

During a brief stay in Cairo with friends of
considerable influence there, such an occasion
offered itself to me.

In the house next to the one in which I was
visiting, a wedding was in progress; I say in
progress, seeing that the ceremonies attendant
thereon lasted five days. The house in question
had belonged to Selim Pasha, a Turkish
grandee, and very wealthy, but who had, shortly
before, quitted this sublunary sphere: leaving
his wealth, his harem, and his children, under
the tutelage of persons appointed to undertake
that charge. It was his eldest son, a youth
who had attained the ripe age of fourteen, who
was now being married. The bride was a
Circassian slave, brought up and much beloved by
the mother of Abbas Pasha, late nephew to the
reigning viceroy, and who, a few years before,
had been quietly disposed of, as was commonly
believed, through the instrumentality of Nasli
Hanoum, his aunt; but at all events with the
approval, and probably the connivance, of all the
family, as a measure of self-defence. The old
lady, being of an advanced age, and wishing to
provide for her protégé before her death, had
made up the present match.

Often sunning myself on the balcony—for the
season was winter, and the wind sometimes
chilly—I used to look with curiosity into my
neighbour's premises. The house, a very large
one, stood between a court and garden, far back
from the street, much farther than ours, so that
we commanded a view of the whole of one side
of it. It was built with the usual flat roof,
which is common to all dwellings in Egypt, and
with the windows of the harem, only excepting
those looking on the gardens which specially
belonged to it, very small, and so high up as to
be quite beyond the reach of the inmates. Even
the windows on the garden had close carved
lattice-work more than half their height outside
the casements. Attached to the house were a
number of outbuildings, most of them in
grievous want of repair, as is the custom of
those regions, where hardly a wall is without
vast cracks and seams, to say nothing of more
serious dilapidation. It is said that a week of
rain at Cairo, which happily is a circumstance
unknown in its annals, would bring down the
greater portion of the city. But this by the
way.

The space between some of those buildings
was closed in by canvas coverings, and from
thence proceeded frequently the sounds of music,
chiefly instrumental, but occasionally vocal as
well. I had never heard Turkish music
performed by a Turkish band, and was very glad
of this opportunity. The music was quite peculiar,
unlike any other I have had any experience
of, and some of it was really fine. To English
ears it has little melody—using the word in
the technical sense—is generally monotonous,
and often trivial—but occasionally there come
wild bursts, snatches of

                  Sad perplexed minors,

that are very striking indeed. There are often,
too, odd breaks in the air, as played by the
leading instrument, while the accompaniment
fills up the space until it be resumed, and then
keeps up rather an echo of it than a simultaneous
sound, which, in itself, produces a singular
effect. The instruments I could not see; they
seemed to be chiefly of brass, with drums of a
dull sound, tambourines, and some other instruments
in the nature of cymbals, but less loud
and clashing.

From chimneys built in all sorts of queer
places, most of them opening a little above the
surface of the ground, issued the smoke of the
cookery perpetually going on—forty sheep alone
were slaughtered for the occasion, and the
quantity of poultry sacrificed must have been
almost beyond computation. The kites, which
swarm in Cairo, gathered by scores to pick up
the offal cast into the yards. At times, the air
would literally be darkened and troubled by the
wheelings of these picturesque scavengers, and
resonant with their little vibrating tremulous
whistle: while rows of them sat along the
parapet running round the roof. Now and then