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Rh was being wrought in Fatma's own private apartment, where she and several of her Algerine companions, assisted by a coal-black slave girl, named Zooloo, converted innocent little Agnes into a Moor.

Of course conversation with the heroine of the hour was impossible, but this mattered little to Agnes, for she could converse quite powerfully with her eyes, and her young friends chattered more than enough among themselves.

Standing over her with a formidable pair of scissors, and grasping her front hair with her left hand, the coal-black Zooloo said—"Stand still, you white thing, till I perform my duty."

Of course she said it only by her looks; and Agnes quite understood her.

Next moment a whole cluster of golden ringlets fell to the ground. For one moment Agnes's eyes and mouth resembled three round O's. She felt that something telling had been done, and thoughts of her mother flashed into her mind, but Fatma's pretty little round face, with no eyes to speak of owing to laughter, caused her to smile and then to laugh heartily.

Having brushed the front hair over her forehead, and cut it straight across, the energetic Zooloo next painted her eye-brows black with a substance called kohl, causing them to meet over her nose in the