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 time, while the boat was steaming on; yet no sooner did I get a glimpse of our own island and our own pine trees than I forgot the halaïc and Sitanthy and my sorrow, and in spite of the people on the boat I burst forth into a loud song of joy. I was never any good at tune, and there was little difference between my singing and the miauling of a cat; yet whenever I was particularly happy I had to express it by song, and only a peremptory order would stop me. And while I sang, looking at the island, I was only thinking of the three playmates I was to see, and the halaïc and Sitanthy were forgotten, as if they had never existed. My thoughts were on the three, and on the pleasure they would experience when they saw me returning to them—as indeed they did.

That year was a memorable one in our lives, because it was the last in which my three playmates would be permitted to go uncovered, and play with children of both sexes. They were now nearing the age at which little Turkish girls become women, must don the tchir-chaff and yashmak, hide themselves from the world and prepare for their womanhood. I was, of course, always to continue seeing them and visiting them, but they could no longer enjoy the freedom they had enjoyed up to now—now that they were to become women.

I found all three deep in the study of foreign