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Carlotta to spell, to hold a knife and fork, and corrects such
erroneous opinions as that the sky is an inverted bowl over a
nice flat earth, and that the sun, moon, and stars are a sort of
electric light installation, put into the cosmos to illuminate
Alexandretta and the Regent's Park. Her religious instruction I
myself shall attend to, when she is sufficiently advanced to
understand my teaching. At present she is a Mohammedan, if she
is anything, and believes firmly in Allah. I consider that a
working Theism is quite enough for a young woman in her position
to go on with. In the afternoon she walks out with Antoinette.
Once she stole forth by herself, enjoyed herself hugely for a
short time, got lost, and was brought back thoroughly frightened
by a policeman. I wonder what the policeman thought of her? The
rest of the day she looks at picturebooks and works embroidery.
She is making an elaborate bedspread which will give her
harmless occupation for a couple of years.
For an hour every evening, when I am at home, she comes into the
drawingroom and drinks coffee with me and listens to my
improving conversation. I take this opportunity to rebuke her
for faults committed during the day, or to commend her for
especial good behaviour. I also supplement the instruction in
things in general that is given her by the excellent Miss Griggs.
Oddly enough I am beginning to look forward to these evening
hours. She is so docile, so goodhumoured, so spontaneous. If
she has a pain in her stomach, she says so with the most engaging
frankness. Sometimes I think of her only, in Pasquale's words,
as a bundle of fascination, and forget that she has no soul.
Nearly always, however, something happens to remind me. She
loves me to tell her stories. The other night I solemnly related
the history of Cinderella. She was enchanted. It gave me the
idea of setting her to read Lamb's Tales from Shakespeare. I
was turning this over in my mind while she chewed the cud of her
enjoyment, when she suddenly asked whether I would like to hear a
Turkish story. She knew lots of nice, funny stories. I bade her
proceed. She curled herself up in her favourite attitude on the
sofa and began.
I did not allow her to finish that tale. Had I done so, I should
have been a monster of depravity. Compared with it the worst of
Scheherazade's, in Burton's translation, were milk and water for
a nunnery. She seemed nonplussed when I told her to stop.
Are oriental ladies in the habit of telling such stories? I

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