Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/196

 *stitious. She will not get another passport, even when I promise more commission—and in this manner, you see, I am left with my passport."

We laughed happily over her plans, and she astonished me with her common sense and practical knowledge. And she, who had done no studying since she was a little girl, applied herself to learning French like a poor but ambitious student.

She arranged the twenty-four letters of the French alphabet in three rows, on a large sheet of paper, and learned them all in two days. Then she cut a hole in another sheet of paper just large enough to permit a single letter to show through, and slipped this about over the alphabet at random, in order to make sure she knew the different letters without regard to their relative positions. In two weeks she was reading fluently in a child's book of stories I had brought her. Of course she did not understand all she was reading, but her progress, nevertheless, was marvellous. Since then I have taught many persons French, but never one who learned it so quickly, and her melodious Turkish accent made the French very sweet to hear.

A dressmaker was engaged to make her some European clothes. This would arouse no suspicion, since Turkish women often amused themselves by having a European dress or two made for indoor use. And I was to buy her a hat and