On October 28, Didot, son of the celebrated printer of Paris, passed through Sidon and was invited to go up to the convent. Finding himself in the presence of two Orientals squatting on a divan, he recognised Lady Hester by her beardless face and Regnault by his hump. Lady Hester did not ask him to issue a new edition of her travels, divining well that, contrary to the habits of printers, Didot would give her a great publicity. And he did not fail to add a zero to the 3000 piastres which the expedition to Palmyra had cost. On November 15, Giorgio brought back the surgeon N-----, Dr. Meryon's successor. The twenty-seven trunks which he had brought were landed without examination on the part of the Custom House, mark of consideration from which it never departed throughout Lady Hester's residence in Syria. Giorgio affected a profound dislike of England. The Duke of York was his intimate friend, and Princess Charlotte of Wales had sent him a silver chain. "I shall certainly wear it," said he, "but I shall not say whence it comes, in order not to give the Turks so pitiful an idea of English hospitality." One thing only had struck him: there were no fleas and the people did not tell lies. Having seen at Chevening a portrait of Chatham, he told Lady Hester that her face bore an astonishing resemblance to that of her grandfather, which overwhelmed her with pleasure. Then Dr. Meryon thought of departing. He was affected in taking leave of Lady Hester, but excellent provision for the journey, gazelle-pie, tarts and cold fowls--delicate attention on the part of Miss Williams--soon restored his equanimity. He embarked on January 21, 1817, believing certainly that he would never return. Ah! assuredly he had desired this hour with all his soul, but one does not leave a woman like Lady Hester without regrets. He had just closed a dazzling page of his life. The mauve terraces of Bairout sprawling at the foot of Lebanon were vanishing in the rays of the setting sun. Ah! would he ever be able to forget the marches into the desert at the head of the Arab tribes; and the assistance exacted by the governors of Syria to open the earth and to snatch its treasures from it; and the troops launched into the inaccessible defiles to avenge the disappearance of a traveller? The East leaves in the heart a perfume of dead roses, which is quite sufficient to transform into a posy of recollections set with pearls the incidents of travel.... It is sometimes a flash of vivid sunlight on a load of oranges, sometimes a burst of laughter from a brown and dirty child, sometimes the dust of roads in summer, sometimes the peppery odour which the spice-merchants exhale.... THE END