The gardens, surpassingly beautiful and purely Oriental in character, are entered by long and winding walks of impenetrable shade, from which we emerge on open spaces that team with roses, with gilded pavilions and painted kiosks. 'Arched walks of orange-trees with the fruit and flowers hanging over your head lead to fountains,' says a Jewish writer, 'or to some other garden court, where myrtles border beds of tulips, and you wander on mosaic walks of polished pebbles; a vase flashes amid a group of dark cypresses, and you are invited to repose under a Syrian walnut-tree by a couch or summer-house. The most striking picture, however, of this charming retreat is a lake surrounded by light cloisters of white marble, and in the centre a fountain of crocodiles carved in the same material.' Lulled by the heat, by the drowsy hum made by the sound of many carriages filled with harem beauties or European ladies rolling to and fro on the adjacent Shoubrah Road, with the ceaseless patter of hoofs, as mounted Cairene dandies and our cavalry officers rode in the same gay promenade, Roland reclined on a marble seat, lit another cigarette, and watched the giant flowers of the Egyptian lotus in the little lake, blue and white, that sink when the sun sets, but open and rise when it is shining, till suddenly he saw a young lady appear, who was evidently idling in the gardens like himself. He could see that she was a European. With one glove drawn off, showing a hand the pure whiteness of which contrasted with her dark dress, she was playing with the water of a red marble fountain that fell sparkling into the lakelet, not ten yards from where he was seated, unseen by her. Suddenly his figure, in his undress uniform, caught her eye; she turned and looked full at him, as if spellbound. 'Roland!' she exclaimed. 'Hester--good heavens, can it be?--Hester, and _here_!' said he. Hester she was; he sprang to her side, and they took each other's hands, both for a moment in dumb confusion and bewilderment. At the moment of this meeting and before recognition, even when hovering near him, and he had been all unconscious of who the tall and slender girl in mourning really was, she had been thinking of him, and as she had often thought-- 'I loved Roland all my life--better than my own soul; but such a love as mine is too often only its own best reward; and many a sore heart like mine learns that never in this world is it measured to us again as we have meted it out.' Thus bitterly had the girl been pondering, when she found herself suddenly face to face with the subject of her reverie, and, in spite of herself, a little cloud was blended with the astonishment her eyes expressed. 'Hester--what mystery is this? And are you not glad to see me?' he asked impetuously. 'Glad--oh, Roland! glad indeed, and that you escaped that dreadful day at Kirbekan!' she replied, while her eyes became humid now.