Page:Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope.djvu/319

 astrologers, where the study has been fortified by a previous knowledge of man, his temperaments, and the innate and external characteristics of passions, of virtue, and of vice. She gave him the name of Selim, and sent word to say his star agreed with hers very well. This was good news for Fatôom, as it was equivalent to Lady Hester's taking charge of the infant.

The cradle had already been prepared: it was of wood, painted green, something like a trough, and perforated at the bottom, as is usual in the East. A tube of wood with a bowl to it, exactly of the form of a tobacco-pipe, is tied to the child's waist, a rude but ingenious contrivance to save trouble to the nurse, the bowl serving as the immediate recipient, and the tube passing through the side of the cradle.

March 7.—This being Wednesday, Lady Hester, as usual, was invisible. What she did on these myste-