Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/158

 mounted their mules, and descended the bank by the narrow path that led under the hill to the Sayda road; when, as I was going back to the house, I heard one of the gentlemen calling out to me, "But the empty bottles?" Now the interview had been conducted, on my part, with all the etiquette I was master of, and on theirs, up to the moment of saying good night, with the politeness so natural to the French nation. But the exclamation, "What’s to be done with the empty bottles? you gave us the wine, but did you give us the bottles too?" sounded so comic, and in the vicinity of that residence too, where it was customary to give in a princely way, that the speaker fell a degree in the scale of my estimation on the score of breeding, how much soever he might be commended for his intended exactitude and probity.

I returned to Lady Hester. During my short absence, one of her maids had informed her that the Franks, although they had made a show of going to Jôon when first they passed the gate, had in fact only retired into the valley between the two hills, where they had unpacked their saddle-bags and shifted themselves, in order to make a decent appearance before her. This increased her regret at the trouble they had so uselessly put themselves to. The rain came on soon after, and their unpleasant situation was the subject of conversation for a good half hour. The