“ ‘You may come in for breakfast,’ she adds; and clapping for the servant, orders him to lay the table for me. I enter the beit , which is partitioned into a kitchen, a dining-room, and a parlour. On the table is spread the usual breakfast of a Lebanonese of affluence: namely, cheese, honey, fig-jam, and green olives. The servant, who is curious to know my name, my religion, my destination, and so forth, tells me afterwards that Madame is the wife of the kaimakam , and the castle, which is building, is their new home.
“Coming out, I thank Madame, and ask her about the grave of Renan’s sister. She pauses amazed, blows her narghile smoke in my face, surveys me from top to toe, and puts to me those same questions with which I was tormented by her servant. Indeed, I had answered ten of hers, before I got this answer to mine: ‘The sister of whom, thou sayst? That Frenchman who came here in the sixties for antiquities? Yes; his sister died and was buried here, but no Christian remembers her for good. She must have been a bad one like her brother, who was an infidel, they say, and did not know or