lake, "that the mind
of the woman was too strong to be thoroughly overcome by even this
potent feeling. I plainly saw that she was not an unhesitating follower
of her own system; and I even fancied that I could distinguish the brief
moments during which she contrived to believe in herself, from those
long and less happy intervals in which her own reason was too strong for
her.

"As for the lady's faith in astrology and magic science, you are not for
a moment to suppose that this implied any aberration of intellect. She
believed these things in common with those around her; and it could
scarcely be otherwise, for she seldom spoke to anybody, except crazy old
dervishes, who at once received her alms and fostered her extravagances;
and even when (as on the occasion of my visit) she was brought into
contact with a person entertaining different notions, she still remained
uncontradicted. This _entourage_, and the habit of fasting from books
and newspapers, was quite enough to make her a facile recipient of any
marvellous story."[24]

* * * * *

After Lady Hester's death, a visit was paid to the place which had been
her residence for so many years, by Major Eliot Warburton, the
accomplished author of "The Crescent and the Cross." He speaks of the
buildings, that constituted the palace, as of a very scattered and
complicated description, covering a wide space, but only one story in
height; courts and gardens, stables and sleeping rooms, halls of
audience and ladies' bowers, all strangely intermingled. Heavy weeds
clambered about the open portals and a tangle of roses and jasmine
blocked the way to the inner court, where the flowers no longer bloomed
and the fountains had ceased to play in the marble basins. At nightfall
when Major Warburton's escort had lighted their watch-fires, the lurid
gleam fell strangely upon masses of honeysuckle and woodbine; on the
white, mouldering walls beneath, and the dark, waving trees above; while
the quaint picture seemed appropriately filled up by the group of wild
mountaineers, with their long beards and vivid dresses, who gathered
around the cheerful blaze.

Next morning, Major Warburton explored the spacious gardens. "Here many
a broken arbour and trellis bending under masses of jasmine and
honeysuckle, showed the care and taste that were once lavished on this
wild but beautiful hermitage: a garden-house, surrounded by an
enclosure of roses run wild, stoo