Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/201

 I had brought her from the island, she took it and examined it with a puzzled expression. Being a European rattle she did not know what it was.

"What am I to do with it?" she asked.

"To play with it," and seeing her more puzzled still I explained to her what it was, and how I had got it.

She patted it affectionately. "Pretty little toy!" she murmured; "pretty little toy! I believe it is warm yet from the baby touch."

Our French lessons made great progress, and her preparations for Paris were completed. The scheme for obtaining a passport worked without a hitch, and word had come from the convent that the lady could be accommodated.

At last September was with us, and its coming that year was cold and dreary. The tramontana blew daily, the flowers lost their colour and perfume, and the grass turned pale. Already under the eaves one could hear the bustling swallows, and on a particularly cold day news came, somehow, that Nouri Pasha's youngest wife was dead.

My Lady of the Fountain wept as if the girl had been her only child; and between her tears and sobs she kept saying:

"She was only seventeen—and beloved—and the mother of a boy. And now she is dead,