This old lady asked me one day if I were not very “dek”--_ennuié_--living alone in a strange land. She said, “Why do you not buy a little Kaffir girl with a white skin, and make her your wife?” I said I was betrothed to an English girl. “England!” she said, “that is a far journey from here. Take to yourself a wife in Afghanistan, and your English wife can remain in England.” You wicked old lady! I thought. I said, “It is not the custom of my country, and is forbidden by our religion.” She laughed. I began to get afraid of this old lady. Another day the younger nurse volunteered a remark. She asked me--Were there in England any women as beautiful as she, with skin as white and eyes as dark. The old ladies remarked that her question was exceedingly ill-bred, and one likely to cause offence to me. The Armenian told her that she, and such as she, were not fit to carry the shoes of an English lady. I said he was quite right: so she was snubbed all round. However, she did not seem to mind, for she sat and smiled to herself. Meanwhile, I was continuing my Persian lessons, whenever Munshi Amin Ullah, the Agent’s secretary, could spare an hour to visit me. One day I persuaded him to read “Bret Harte” aloud to me. It was delicious to see this highly-educated Mahomedan--he was an excellent fellow--sitting cross-legged on the ground, solemnly declaiming the “Heathen Chinee.” As I laughed, I said, “By Jove! it _is_ funny!” He said he thought it was very difficult and very incorrect English. I told him that was just where the joke came in. He smiled politely, and asked why I said “By Joe!” He had often heard Englishmen use the expression, and knew that Joe was an abbreviation of Joseph, though why we should say “By Joe,” or who Joe was, he had not heard. I explained the origin of the expression, and described Jove as the god of the Romans. I asked him if he had considered the Christian Religion. He told me he had studied the Jewish Bible and the Christian Testament. He could not understand how a race so intellectual as the English could accept the--to him--incomprehensible idea of three Gods. I said that Christians believed in one God only, and I endeavoured to illustrate the Trinity in Unity by describing the trinity that exists in every man: of will, intellect, and deed. To do anything one must first have the wish, or will, from that is begotten the thought how to do it, then comes the deed. He did not discuss the point. He said another thing that puzzled and surprised him considerably was the custom among the English of selling their wives. I said, “But Englishmen do not sell their wives.” “Yes,” he said, “and, moreover, it is published in the newspapers when they do so.” “What on earth do you mean?” I asked.