Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/230

 which I did at once, bawling out as he went, that I did not want to be pestered with beggars. Well, my strange harshness, of course, was talked of, and of course was repeated to the Pasha, who, thinking the object of his oppression was now an object of contempt also, was perfectly satisfied, and left the man, as he supposed, to utter ruin and degradation. But, after a few days, I privately sent to the poor distressed merchant, provided a purchaser for his house, smoothed the difficulties in the way of the sale, and, furnishing him from my own purse with a sum of money sufficient to begin the world with again, I shipped him off with his family to Egypt."

Lady Hester was indeed generous and charitable, giving with a large hand, as Eastern kings are represented to have given. She would send whole suits of clothes, furnish rooms, order camels and mules to convey two or three quarters of wheat at a time to a necessitous family, and pay carpenters and masons to build a poor man's house: she had a munificence about her that would have required the revenue of a kingdom to gratify. Hence, too, sprung that insatiable disposition to hoard—not money, but what money could buy: she seemed to wish to have stores of whatever articles were necessary for the apparel, food, and convenience of man. Beds, counterpanes, cushions, carpets, and such like furniture, lay rotting in her