Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/291

 have got out of my room that those beasts may clean it? but, if you don't go to them, they'll steal everything." After expressing my fears that she had chosen a bad day to come out, I left her. I saw her room put into as much order as the confusion in it would admit of. It was crowded with bundles one upon another, as before, which she dared not put into any other part of the house, lest they should be stolen.

Independent of her desire to be more clean and comfortable, I guessed at once why she had left her bed-room to go into the garden. It was the struggle which the sick often make—the resolution of an unsubdued spirit, that finds corporeal ailments weighing down the body, whilst the mind is yet unsubdued. It was Friday too, the day in all the week she held as most auspicious.

When I returned into the garden, I found her lying on a sofa, in a beautiful alcove, one of three or four that embellished her garden, and an attendant standing with his hands folded across his breast, in an attitude of respect before her. At these moments, she always wore the air of a Sultaness. In this very alcove, how often had she acted the queen, issued her orders, summoned delinquents before her, and enjoyed the semblance of that absolute power, which was the latent ambition of her heart! Hence it was that