The sole furniture of the reception room of Arabi’s wife consisted of small hard divans covered with brown linen and a tiny table with a crochet antimacassar thrown over it. On the whitewashed walls the only ornaments were photographs of him in black wooden frames, and one larger photograph of the Sacred Stone at Mecca. In the room where Arabi himself sat and received were a similar hard divan, two or three chairs, a table, and an inkstand covered with stains. His wife was ready to receive us, having heard an hour or two earlier of our intended visit. She greeted us warmly, speaking in Arabic, which Lady Anne interpreted to me. She has a pleasant, intelligent expression; but, having five children living out of fourteen that have been born to her, looked rather overcome with the cares of maternity, her beauty dimmed since the time when the tall, grave soldier she had seen passing under her window every day looked up at last, and saw and loved her. She wore a long dress of green silk. ‘My husband hates this long train,’ she told us afterwards; ‘he would like to take a knife and cut it off, but I say I must have a fashionable dress to wear when I visit the Khedive’s wife and other ladies.’ I think there are English husbands who, in this grievance at least, will sympathise with Arabi. An old woman with white hair, dressed in the common country fashion—a woollen petticoat and blue cotton jacket—came into the room and occupied herself with the children. Presently we found that she was Arabi’s mother. She spoke with great energy and vivacity, welcoming us and talking of her son with much affection and pride. ‘I am only a fellah woman,’ she said, ‘but I am the mother of Ahmed Arabi.’ She took me twice into another room to see an oleograph, of which she was very proud, representing him in staring colours. After a short time, a negro boy, the only visible attendant, brought in a tray, and we were invited to sit down and eat. The meal began with boiled chicken and broth, which were followed by forcemeat balls, rice, vegetables, sweet pastry, and other native dishes in abundance, though our hostess lamented the short notice she had been given of our visit. If she had known in time she would have had a cow killed. Two little girls, her daughters, waited on us, and brought water to wash our hands. She, herself, kept up an animated conversation, and gave us a vivid account of the imprisonment of the three colonels and their rescue. When they were in prison the others were frightened, but Arabi was not. He said: ‘It is not the will of God that we should perish.’ ‘When I heard what had happened, though I was almost too ill to leave the house, I hired a carriage and drove up towards the palace to ask for news of them, but could hear nothing, and soon I had to come back, and that evening my baby was born. At the moment of her birth came the news that my husband had been released by the soldiers, so I called her “Bushra”’ (good tidings). She was brought