And, notwithstanding all their restrictions, Turkish women’s lives are full of plots and schemes and scandals to a degree that at first sight would seem impossible in a society where there is so little direct communication between the two sexes. In one household, for example, the old mother has made up her mind to prejudice her son against one of his wives, so that another, her favorite, may occupy the chief place. So she tries, among other things, to keep the first one’s children in the background and prevent them from being educated or made attractive in their father’s eyes, hoping that he may neglect them for those of the second. In another the deserted wife revenges herself upon her rival by throwing a beautiful slave, whom she has sought over land and sea, in the husband’s way, hoping to make him leave the second one, as he has her. Another with a genius for matchmaking manages so that one of her own family shall see and fall in love with a certain young girl of her acquaintance, and by marrying her himself balk her husband, whom she suspects of having views in the same direction. A number of wealthy women club together to purchase and present a handsome slave to the Sultan or the grand vizier, to further some private scheme they have on hand; other women of good family, by means of secret wirepulling and their influence over powerful relatives, can accomplish almost anything they want--the disgrace of a prominent official, the elevation of a friend, the divorce of this one, the dismissal of that to some distant province; and, although there is so much less social intercourse than among us, they do not know any less about one another’s affairs. A woman’s reputation for wit or insane jealousy or stupidity or a slanderous tongue extends far beyond the circle of her immediate acquaintances, while a clever speech or one of those plays upon words to which the Turkish language lends itself so admirably flies from mouth to mouth and is repeated far and wide. Births, marriages, circumcisions, fêtes, every little event which occurs in the European colony or the Seraglio, forms the subject of endless talk and gossip: “Have you seen the new bonnet of the French ambassadress?--Who knows anything about the pretty Georgian slave the Validêh Sultan is going to give the Pâdishah on the feast of Great Bairam?--Is it true that Ahmed-Pasha’s wife was seen the day before yesterday in European shoes trimmed with silk tassels?--Have the costumes for the ‘Bourgeois gentilhomme’ they are going to perform in the Seraglio theatre actually come at last?--Mahmûd Effendi’s wife has been going for a week past to the Bayezid mosque to pray for twins.--There has been a scandal in connection with such and such a photographer’s shop in the Rue de Pera, on account of Ahmed Effendi’s having found his wife’s picture among the photographs.--Madame Ayscé drinks wine.--Madame Fatima has ordered visiting-cards.--Some one saw Madame Hafiten go in a Frank shop at