Alice Durand, after weeks of discouragement, reads the following advertisement in the New York Herald: "Governess wanted. Young American woman, well educated and speaking French and German, may obtain lucrative position with prominent Egyptian. Fare and expenses will be advanced. Write, enclosing photograph, to Mahmoud Pasha, Sphinx Club, Cairo, Egypt." Answering the advertisement, Alice seven weeks later, secures the position and leaves her New York boarding-house for Egypt.