His Excellency's English Governess

It was Presentation-day at the University of London. The date was somewhere in the latter half of the present century,--not this year, nor last year, nor the year before that, w...

Miss Arbuthnot’s well-meant solicitude had the effect of making Cecil very nervous as the evening approached, and at last she actually entreated to be allowed to stay behind at...

“Come in, come in,” said Lady Haigh, hospitably, leading the way into her sitting-room. “Well, Cecil, my dear (for I really must call you so), were you very much astonished at t...

A very busy time followed upon Cecil’s decision. Her agreement with the Pasha had to be signed at once, before Denarien Bey left London, though it was not to come into force unt...

They were sitting on the divan in a little cramped-up shop in one of the bazaars, with tiny cups of black coffee before them, and all manner of lovely fabrics--silks and muslins...

At Karachi there came the first interruption to the smoothness which had hitherto marked the journey. Lady Haigh had expected to be met at this point by the gunboat which was un...

“My last day of this!” said Charlie to himself the next morning, as he went on deck. It was a sad thought, and he tried hard to be duly miserable, but the morning was so fine an...

Lady Haigh was gone, and Cecil felt very desolate. Everything seemed so new and strange, and she was so far removed from every familiar face, except the severe and respectable o...

“My Western mind admires him extremely, because he is so tremendously in earnest, but my Eastern mind is disgusted by his restlessness. Why can’t he let people alone? He must al...

For more than a year Azim Bey continued to be sulky on the subject of the Mission-school, although in everything else he was a pattern pupil. His intended career as a public ben...

When the people of the house discovered the identity of their uninvited guests, the welcome which they offered them was the reverse of warm. All Azim Bey’s threats and promises...

While Sir Dugald was taking his measures of precaution, Cecil had been carried into one of the rooms on the ground-floor of the outer court, and laid on the divan. Charlie rushe...

On the last evening of her stay at Hillah, Cecil became acquainted with an interesting fact concerning Azim Bey which at once touched and amused her. “A marriage had been arrang...

Neither Cecil nor Azim Bey ever referred in words to the approaching termination of the former’s engagement. Cecil had never in the slightest degree hesitated in her resolution...

But Christmas Eve passed on, the new agreement was brought and signed, and still Charlie did not come. The other young men looked at one another and laughed when they found that...

“Well, dear?” cried Mrs Hagopidan, rushing to Cecil’s side, as Charlie precipitated himself down the stairs, hurried across the courtyard, and arrived at the gate just in time t...

After all, the tender care Cecil had shown for her pupil’s feelings, almost disregarding Charlie’s in comparison with them, was not only without result, but quite unnecessary. A...

Azim Bey was now all eagerness to communicate to his trusted ally M. Karalampi the discovery he had made, which proved that he had been right all along in fixing upon Charlie as...

“Not _dead_, my dear? oh no! how could you imagine that?” cried Lady Haigh, in great excitement; “nor hurt, nor even in danger, I hope, at present. But the horses are ready. Let...

In her own room that night, Cecil, in the first strength of her grief and desolation, took a solemn resolution never on any account to mention Charlie to Azim Bey again. He was...

After this, things went on quietly enough until it was a year and a half since Charlie had left Baghdad. Only a year now remained of Cecil’s stay at the Palace, and Azim Bey was...

Much as Cecil was troubled on Charlie’s account, her worries were not all to be laid to his charge, for the near approach of the journey seemed to have unsettled Azim Bey, and d...

The journey through the upland country had not been at all a pleasant one to Cecil, quite irrespective of the continual alarms due to the attacks of the insurgents. From the ver...

They retraced their steps up the rugged hill-path, Cecil first, Um Yusuf following her, and went in at the gate, climbing the steep rock-hewn lanes of the little town in silence...

Leaving Cecil and Um Yusuf in their captivity at Sardiyeh, the harem procession made its way down the winding mountain-paths, a curious assemblage of closely swathed white figur...

When Jamileh Khanum’s message reached Sardiyeh, it put an end at once to the tranquil and monotonous life which the two captives had been leading. They were informed late in the...

It seemed a very long time that the two prisoners waited alone, and it was indeed long enough for the momentary excitement to pass away, and for Cecil to realise how very little...