When he died there were four florins left, which I put into the
poor-box."
They had a very pleasant season in London. They were mainly occupied in
preparing _The Arabian Nights_; but their labours over for the day, they
went out in society a great deal. Perhaps the most noteworthy event at
this time was that Isabel made a long speech at St. James's Hall at a
meeting for the purpose of appealing to the Pope for a Circular Letter
on the subject of the protection of animals. The meeting was in vain.
The first volume of _The Arabian Nights_ came out on December 12, 1885,
and the sixteenth volume, the last of the Supplementals, on November
13, 1888. Thus in a period of three years they produced twenty-two
volumes--namely, ten Originals, six Supplementals, and Lady Burton's
six volumes of the Household Edition.
In October, 1885, they went down to Hatfield on a visit to Lord and Lady
Salisbury. A week before this Burton, having heard that Sir John
Drummond Hay, Consul at Morocco, was about to retire, applied for the
post. It was the one thing that he had stayed on in the Consular Service
in hope of obtaining. He wrote a letter to the Foreign Secretary, which
was backed up by about fifty of the best names in England, whom his wife
had canvassed; and indeed it seemed that the post was as good as assured
to him. In the third week in November Burton started for Morocco in
order to spy out the promised land, or rather the land which he hoped
would have been his.
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