‘I left him at home with Mary Anne,’ I reply, feeling that I am worthy of being a diplomatist at the court of St Petersburg, as she opens the door and descends the stairs. I take her out into the garden and begin to reprove her for her conduct, with assumed anger. She listens with eyes blinded by tears. I, on the look-out for it, hear the latch of the garden gate click; but she, absorbed in her sorrow, does not notice it. I look up and see Frank Ogilvie’s eyes fixed hungrily on his wife. Her changed appearance must be an awful shock to him; but he bears it bravely; and in a moment he has sprung forward, clasped her in his arms, and the poor scarred face is hidden on his true and loving heart!
Then Mary Anne and I turn silently away, and leave him to teach her that there are things more valuable, of far higher worth than any mere beauty of face or form.
After all, we do not lose her, for Mr Ogilvie coming into some money, leaves the navy and purchases a small estate in our neighbourhood, on which they still reside. Mrs Ogilvie is no longer young, and has a family of lads and lasses around her, who inherit much of their mother’s loveliness. But one of the first things she teaches them is not to set a fictitious value on it; ‘for,’ she says, ‘I thought too much of mine, and God took it from me.’ No one ever hears her regret the loss of her beauty; ‘for through that trial,’ she tells my wife, ‘I learned to know the true value of my Frank’s heart.’
She simply worships her husband, and is in all respects a happy woman. Indeed, seeing the sweet smiles which adorn her face and the loving light which dwells in her eyes, I am sometimes tempted to call her as of yore—Pretty Mrs Ogilvie.
BURNABY’S RIDE IN TURKEY.
In his volume of travels in Turkey, Captain Burnaby has given such a large variety of amusing particulars, that it is eminently worthy of perusal. The following are a few rough notes:
Radford, the captain’s English servant, was one of the veritable descendants of Uncle Toby’s Corporal Trim; men—for there are a large family of them—to whom the word duty means obeying the word of command, no matter what form it may happen to take, be it to cook a dinner or storm a trench. At Constantinople another servant was required and engaged—one Osman, a Mohammedan, a very smart fellow, in every sense of the word. Picturesque in dress, tall and fine-looking into the bargain, and fully alive to the worth of the Effendi’s gold, to which he helped himself unsparingly, without hurt to his conscience or hinderance to his prayers. The devotions of this worthy proving a fruitful source of misery to the captain, he came to the conclusion that religious servants are a mistake, especially in the East.
At Constantinople there was some little delay occasioned by having horses to buy and friends to see, and then there were the cafés, which are always amusing more or less; for the proprietors find that good voices and pretty girls are sure attractions, whether for Giaour or Turk. But the poor girls have a hard time of it. By birth they are chiefly Hungarian and Italian. They act as waitresses mostly, and are compelled by the Turks who frequent the cafés to sweeten, by tasting, all that they order. The violence thus done to their digestive organs may be imagined. One Italian girl bemoaned her lot, saying: ‘It is such a mixture. I have a pain sometimes (pointing to the bodice of her dress). I wish to cry; but I have to run about and smile, wait upon visitors and drink with them. It is a dreadful life! Oh, if I could only return to Florence!’