“My locket with Mamma’s hair?  Oh, no, no,” said Lucy, laughing; “a governess is a lady to teach you.”

“I don’t want to learn any more,” said Amina, much disgusted; “I shall tell him I can make sweetmeats, and roll rose-leaves.  What should I learn for?”

“Should you not like to read and write?”

“Teaching is only meant for men,” replied Amina.  “They have got to read the Koran, but it is all ugly letters; I won’t learn to read.”

“You don’t know how nice it is to read stories all about different countries,” said Lucy.  “Ah!  I wish I was in the schoolroom, at home, and I would show you how pleasant it is.”

And Lucy seemed to have her wish all at once, for she and Amina stood in her own schoolroom, but with no one else there.  The first thing Amina did was to scream, “Oh, what shocking windows! even men can see in; shut them up.”  She rolled herself up in her veil, and Lucy could only satisfy her by pulling down all the blinds, after which she ventured to look about a little.  “What have you to sit on?” she asked with great disgust.

“Chairs and stools,” said Lucy, laughing and showing them.

“These little tables with four legs!  How can you sit on them?”

Lucy sat down and showed her.  “That is not sitting,” she said, and she tried to curl herself up cross-legged.

“Our teacher always makes us write a long grammar lesson if she sees us sitting with our legs crossed,” said Lucy, laughing with much amusement at Amina’s attempts to wriggle herself up on the stool from which she nearly fell.

“Ah, I will never have a governess!” cried Amina.  “I will cry and cry, and give Selim Bey no rest till he promises to let me alone.  What a dreadful place this is!  Where can you sleep?”

“In bed, to be sure,” said Lucy.

“I see no cushions to lie on.”

“No; we have bedrooms, and beds there.  We should not think of taking off our clothes here.”

“What should you undress for?”

“To sleep, of course.”

“How horrible!  We sleep in all our clothes wherever we like to lie down.  We never undress but for the bath.  Do you go to the bath?”

“I have a bath every morning, when I get up, in my own room.”

“Bathe at home!  Then you never see your friends?  We meet at the bath, and talk and play and laugh.”

“Meet bathing!  No, indeed!  We meet at home, and out of doors,” said Lucy; “my friend Annie and I walk together.”

“Walk together! what, in the street?  Shocking!  You cannot be a lady.”

“Indeed I am,” said Lucy, coloring up.  “My papa is a gentleman.  And see how many books we have, and how much we have to learn!  French, and music, and sums, and grammar, and history, and geography.”

“I will not be a Frank!  No, no!  I will not learn,” said the alarmed Amina on hearing this catalogue poured forth.