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“Come, Cecil,” said Lady Haigh, tapping at her door, “don’t you want to speak to your maid? She has been waiting quite a long time.” And Cecil hurried through her toilet obediently, and, coming out of her room, found a tall, severe-looking elderly Syrian woman talking to her friend.

“Her name is Khartûm,” said Lady Haigh, turning to Cecil, “but she is always called Um Yusuf—mother of Joseph, that is. It is the custom in Syria, you know. She has been a widow a good many years, and her son is a soldier in the Turkish army. Her last situation was at Constantinople, where she was nurse to the children of Lord Calne, the late Ambassador, so she knows a good deal about the ins and outs of Court life, and will be able to give you all the needed hints as to etiquette, and so on. Of course I shall always be glad to tell you anything; but then you will not have me continually at hand, and really good manners in Turkey are a very complicated business.”

In fact, Um Yusuf’s duties were those of a duenna quite as much as a maid, and she was well fitted in appearance for the post. She wore the long black silk mantle of the respectable Egyptian woman, which enveloped her from head to foot, and Lady Haigh commended the costume as exceedingly sensible and responsible-looking.