This, too, came in due course. Not alone were the immortal memories of the _Arabian Nights_ recalled before their wondering eyes, with water-carriers, black slaves, veiled women, pacha and dragoman, camels and Arab horses, with gems of Easternrie like the sands of the sea for multitude; but more modern delights, perhaps, on the whole, not less alluring to the immature feminine mind—the grandeur and magnificence of the Savoy Hotel, with the dresses and jewels of the fair visitors who made Cairo a winter resort. Whatever sins of omission the Banneret family had to charge themselves with in after years, the complete and thorough exploration of Grand Cairo and its environs was not among them. They ‘did’ the historic place conscientiously and thoroughly. The Sphinx, the Pyramids, the Museum at Boulak; the Nile, up to the first cataract; the citadel, the Mosque, the Palace of Sweet Waters,—all the regular, and some of the irregular sights. Nothing was neglected. The girls, indeed the whole party, rode well. Mrs. Banneret had been a daring horsewoman in her youth, and though motherhood had necessarily abated her enterprise, the courage which neither poverty, sickness, fatigue, nor mortal pain had power to tame, was still unshaken, and enabled her to bear her part in the expeditions in which the family revelled. Her willowy figure, but little altered from the days of girlhood, was admirably suited for equestrian exercise. She, like the rest of the family, delighted in the glowing atmosphere of the desert, and, now that circumstances had conspired to free her from the trammels of housekeeping, she surrendered herself unreservedly to the enchantment of the hour.
‘What a glorious experience this is for the children—for all of us, indeed!’ she exclaimed more than once. ‘I think you and I, Arnold, enjoy the whole thing nearly as much as they do—the foreign surroundings, the verification of old history and legend, the aloofness of all things from the rawness, if I may use the word, of their native land.’
‘Yes,’ he replied; ‘one seems to absorb everything in a deep, unuttered spirit of thankfulness; and while contented with our lot in life, we have one feeling in common with some of our fellow-visitors at the hotel: a conviction—I speak of Lord Westerham and that South African millionaire who came to the Savoy last week—that our financial position is assured, impossible for anything to alter. We are, however, in a higher position than the millionaire. With him brain work and anxiety have told a tale. His health is impaired. They say he suffers terribly from insomnia, than which I can imagine nothing more agonising. A man whom I knew, otherwise enviably placed, finding that change of air combined with a sea voyage had no effect, hired a cab one day, went out for a short drive, and shot himself.’