Page:A child of the Orient (IA childoforient00vakarich).pdf/44

 so crowded with events and candy that I had had no time to think. Once in bed, after Djimlah put her arms around me and kissed me and then sweetly fell asleep, I had plenty of time to review the day. It seemed preposterous that I, my uncle's grand-niece, should be here in a Turkish household, and in the same bed with a Turkish little girl—a little girl I liked and should hate to kill. Yet my uncle's teachings were strongly with me and his dark, fiery eyes seemed to pierce my heart. I tried to focus my mind on the bad side of this household. There was the fact of the several wives, and if it was bad for Arif Bey to have two wives, it must be terribly bad to have seven, as had Djimlah's grandfather, who did not even have the excuse, to my thinking, of being young, handsome and Olympian. On the other hand, the old hanoum liked those other wives, and called them Sister, and Djimlah spoke of them lovingly. Impelled by my uncle's eyes I tried to dislike the Turks. I felt disloyal to him, whom I could feel very close that night; but when I fell asleep at last, my rest was not troubled, and on awakening again Djimlah was leaning over me, cooing and laughing, and I began to laugh too.

The tears, which I had had the courage not to shed when my father said that I might stay with Djimlah, flowed copiously when the time came to leave her. I cried hard and loud, and so did