Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/142

 floor to catch the droppings, and it continued to rain on. The sloppy communications from door to door, where every door opens into a courtyard, gave likewise a damp to the apartments only supportable in a climate as mild as that of Syria. Snow had covered the upper chain of Mount Lebanon in great abundance, and the wind blew furiously. Everybody was out of humour, and many of the servants were labouring under bad coughs and colds : but the women, notwithstanding, always moved about the house with naked feet. It was a wonder to see how, with coughs that might be heard from one courtyard to another, they constantly went barefoot, and yet got well; and a servant, if sent to the village, was sure to leave his shoes at the porter’s lodge, and, drawing his sherwáls or trousers up above his knees, to set off as light as a deer through the pelting storm, careless of wet, if he could but cover his head.

I saw Lady Hester about two in the day: she was in low spirits, lying in her bed with the window and door open from a sense of suffocation which had just before seized her.

"Would you believe it," said she, as I entered, "those beasts would leave me to die here before they came to my assistance! and, if I happen to fall asleep, there is not one would cover my shoulders to prevent my taking cold."