Note 7 — Chapter I

She was without colour on her cheeks, and it would seem that rosy cheeks do not form part of Eastern beauty. Lady Hester used often to repeat a compliment which was paid to her own pale looks in Egypt. “My white face,” she would say, “in this country pleases the people amazingly, and the Turks consider the red faces of the English women odious. Witness the story told of those who were left behind by the English army after the expedition to Egypt in 1805, and were taken by the Turks. Their new masters washed them and washed them, hoping to get the brick-dust out of their cheeks; and, when they found it impossible, they sent them about their business. Black women, the Turks said, they knew and liked, and white ones; but red women they never heard of till then.”