" And so the years passed on, and we all knew and loved our General in his own hospitable house, at our sports and races, at every social gathering, by the grave-side as one after another of us went to rest, with his white head bowed reverently in our church on Sundays. He came among us at an age when most men are thinking about their ease at home. When it got hot in summer we went away to Europe; but not so General Stephenson. Not a day was he off duty for four years, and he went home last summer only because his health required it.
" It was not only we English that loved him. All loved him. The spiteful little Bosphore had nothing to say against him. He has always been un parfait gentilhonime. We gave him a dinner the other day. Two hundred sat down, and about half were foreigners. He has been a political factor of the ver}'' highest value, tending more than anything we have done in Cairo to cast honour on the English name. Is it not something to be proud of, to gladden our New Year's Day, that we should have been able to show to the nations such an Englishman as this? Somehow one does not expect simplicity and purity and unselfish kindness of heart, and unaffected interest in his fellow-men, from an old bachelor used to the Guards Club and the Albany, and to London fashionable life. But all these good qualities are to be found in Sir Frederick Stephenson. He gave up his command and left us yesterday. Oh 1 be kind to him, my countrymen, when he gets home. He will perhaps never command an army again. Perhaps he is too old.
' O just and faithful knight of God, Ride on, the prize is near.'
So would say many in Cairo as well as yours truly,
" Anglo-Egyptian. " Cairo, New Year's Day."
On his return from Egypt Sir Frederick settled down in his London home, and continued in the occupation of the same house until his death. The eldest of his unmarried sisters, known to many outside her own family as " Aunt Minnie," and to whom so many of his letters are addressed, was by this time advanced in years, having been born in 1808, and it is rather a pathetic circumstance that now for the first time she reaUsed the dream of her Hfe — to keep house for her much-loved youngest brother. She Hved to be ninety years old, and was even then a pretty and dainty old lady.
Sir Frederick always kept up the keenest interest in Egyptian affairs; and it was not only the political and military outlook of the country that occupied his mind after he left Egypt, for its historical and artistic conditions were a constant source of pleasure, so it was with the anticipation of great enjoyment that he accepted an invitation from Lord and Lady Wantage to join them in a visit there in 1897. The visit was a great success, and the manner in which he was received, after nearly ten years' absence, touched him profoundly.