This was inexplicable! “I trust that the Pasha has quite recovered his late indisposition,” pursued my companion after a moment’s silence. “I did not know that he was unwell; we have not heard from him lately.” “Heard from him?” echoed Madame——in her turn; “my husband had a long conversation with him yesterday.” Again the beauty dilated her large eyes in wonder. “Impossible! He is in Albania.” Here was the solution of the enigma. We were bound on a visit to Mustapha Pasha, the rebel—and we were under the roof of Omer Pasha, his present successor! After a hearty laugh on all sides, we were quite at our ease; the young beauty handed scented conserves and coffee to us with her own pretty, plump, henna-tipped fingers; and informed us that her mother-in-law, the Buyuk Hanoum, and herself, were occupying a house lent to them by a friend, for the few weeks which they found it expedient to pass in Constantinople, while making their arrangements for Albania, where they were shortly to join the Pasha. After passing half an hour in chatting on various subjects, we rose to take our leave, and to profit by the polite offer of our new acquaintance to send a servant to point out to us the palace of Mustapha Pasha. As we were making our parting compliments, a slave came in to request that we would pay a visit to the Buyuk Hanoum in her apartment, whither she had just returned from the bath. We immediately assented, and were conducted to a spacious room at the other extremity of the hall, where we found the lady seated under the tandour, and almost in darkness; the windows of the room being on the old Turkish principle—that is, perforated in a double tier—the lower ones so closely latticed that they admitted scarcely any light, and barely permitted those within to see into the street; and the upper ones, small and half circular, dull with dust, situated close to the ceiling, and, in several instances, where time or accident had displaced the glass, repaired roughly with thin planks nailed across. The atmosphere of the apartment was close and oppressive, perfume having been flung into the mangal as we entered, which was rising in a dense vapour; and every creek and crevice in the room (and they were not few) being stopped with pink paper.