Occasionally Barakah paid visits as in duty bound; but she much preferred to stay indoors, to smoke and dream and talk with Umm ed-Dahak. Her husband, by his father’s influence, obtained a post of some importance, necessitating their removal shortly to a proper house, with a selamlik of its own where he could see his courtiers. Barakah looked forward to the change with high indifference, though Umm ed-Dahak strove to waken her enthusiasm, crying:

“Thou wilt now have eunuchs and a carriage of thy very own. Inshallah, Yûsuf Bey will go on rising till thy pomp excels the dignity of mighty queens.”

Her life could hardly be more easy, she considered; she was quite content. The Pasha’s ladies would be grieved to lose her, and she would feel quite lost apart from them. She thought they all respected and admired her.

It was therefore a great shock to her when one afternoon Murjânah Khânum sent for her and read her a kind lecture on her way of life.