In order to be worthy of her son’s magnificence, Barakah had evolved a fine romantic history out of her own past. The transmutation of that dross to gold took place so naturally that she was not aware of lying when she told her crony that she was of royal birth. Gentility being something inconceivable by Umm ed-Dahak, who knew of no inherited prestige save that of an Emir, she was obliged, in order to convey the status of a governess, to compare it with the lot of fallen princes. From thence to the invention of a principality was but a step. The remonstrance of the Consul and of Mrs. Cameron against her marriage became the rage of a fanatical and angry nation. The noise of her conversion had disturbed all Europe, and nearly brought on a religious war. Let Umm ed-Dahak ask the Pasha, if she doubted!

But Umm ed-Dahak was not of the kind who doubt. For her, romantic fiction was more worth than fact. She accepted this, as she accepted every tale, artistically, and even added likely details unperceived of Barakah.