of prejudice.

Let me tell you that my harem is to me at the present time a most
tranquil home, and that, but for the fact that I have four wives,
everything about it has permanently assumed the every-day aspect of a
simple household. Our evenings are spent in conversation round the
drawing-room table with music and dancing, conducted in a thoroughly
amiable and cheerful spirit, and all set off by the accomplishments of
my sultanas. I combine in my conjugal relations the dignified oriental
bearing of a vizir with the tender sentimentalities of a Galaor, and in
this I have really attained to an exquisite perfection.

In fact, it would be the Country of Love in the Paradise of Mahomet, but
for a few clouds which, since my uncle's return, have obscured the
bright rays of my honeymoon. I have had some trouble with Hadidje and
Nazli, who seem determined to make a trip over to the chateau as
Kondje-Gul had done; for, as might have been foreseen, as soon as her
alarms had subsided, this silly creature, with the view no doubt of
exciting their jealousy, and posing as the favourite, had taken care to
relate to them all the wonders of this, to them, forbidden place. Of
course I refused at once to permit such an irregularity, contrary as it
was to all harem traditions. This refusal was the signal for a scene of
tears and jealous passions, which I subdued, but which only gave way to
the tender reproaches of slighted affections. Well, I try to jog along
as well as I can, as all husbands have to do, but I have a vague
presentiment of troubles still in the air.

I have reopened my letter.

I hope you won't be astonished, my dear fellow, but--I have another
piece of news relating to Barbassou-Pasha.

The day before yesterday, while my uncle and I were chatting together,
as is our custom, before he went to bed, I observed that he yawned in
an unusual manner. I had remarked this symptom before, and I drew my own
conclusion from it, which was that overtaken once more by his
adventurous instincts, he was beginning to find life tedious in the
department of Le Gard,--he was longing for something or other, that was
certain! And I began ransacking my mind to find some new food upon which
he might exercise his all-devouring energy, when he said to me, just
before I left him--

"By the bye, Andre, I have written to your aunt that I am returned. She
will probably arrive some time between now and the end of the week."

"Ah!" I replied;