My Dear grieved with the grieving girl and did her best to comfort
and cheer her. She told her that if Korak lived he would find her;
but all the time she believed that Korak had never existed beyond
the child's dreams. She planned amusements to distract Meriem's
attention from her sorrow, and she instituted a well-designed
campaign to impress upon the child the desirability of civilized
life and customs. Nor was this difficult, as she was soon to learn,
for it rapidly became evident that beneath the uncouth savagery
of the girl was a bed rock of innate refinement--a nicety of taste
and predilection that quite equaled that of her instructor.
My Dear was delighted. She was lonely and childless, and so she
lavished upon this little stranger all the mother love that would
have gone to her own had she had one. The result was that by the
end of the first year none might have guessed that Meriem ever had
existed beyond the lap of culture and luxury.
She was sixteen now, though she easily might have passed for
nineteen, and she was very good to look upon, with her black hair
and her tanned skin and all the freshness and purity of health and
innocence.
Pages:
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280