"We went to the office," said the lady, "and found the consul was all ready for us. We walked from there to his house, which is quite pretty when you get inside of it, and has a nice little garden on a balcony; from this balcony we went into the harem, accompanied by the consul's son, who speaks English. The consul remained outside with the husband of one of the ladies, as it would have been a great outrage upon Oriental etiquette for a foreign gentleman to step inside the sacred spot. "The son of the consul only stayed long enough to introduce us, and then we were left to take care of ourselves. There were half a dozen women, some of them the wives of the consul, and others married to his son: we couldn't remember them all separately, and so when the young man left us we didn't know which was which. But it was of no particular consequence that we forgot, as we had to do all our talking by signs; the women spoke only Arabic, and not one of us knew a dozen words of that language. The only word I could think of was _empshy!_ (clear out!), which you say to beggars when you want to be rid of them, and that wasn't exactly the kind of language to use when you are introduced to strangers. [Illustration: AN ORIENTAL LADY AT HOME.] "When we entered the room they saluted us in Arabic, and invited us to sit on the carpet, which we did as well as we could. There were divans around the sides of the room, and a fine carpet in the centre, and we sat more on the carpet than on the divans. We wanted to do as nearly like our entertainers as we could, and when they invited us to the carpet we thought it would be rudeness to decline. Of course we were rather awkward about it, and laughed at our clumsiness, so as to give them a chance to laugh with us if they wanted to. "They were dressed loosely in the flowing robes such as you see the Arab women wear in the streets, but they had no veils on their faces. There was one who did not seem to be more than fifteen years old, and I presume she was the favorite wife of the consul's son. She wore a dress embroidered more richly than any other, and the material was of a costly silk. I wanted to ask her where it was made, and how much it cost, as I fancied it would be a nice one to take home and excite the envy of my friends. But then, you know, it might have been impolite to put such a question, and, besides, I didn't know how to ask in Arabic. All things considered, I didn't ask at all. "As soon as we sat down on the carpet they began to examine us; they looked very intently into our faces, they scanned our clothing and boots, loosened our hair, took out our ear-drops, and appeared as curious and innocent as children. We returned the compliment by examining them, and they seemed greatly pleased that we did so.