"Married! Oh, no, you are joking."
"Yes, I shall. Selim Bey has paid my father the dowry for me, and I shall be taken to his house next week."
"And I suppose you like him very much."
"He looks big and tall," said the child with exultation. "I saw him riding when I went with my mother to the Sweet Waters. 'Amina,' she said, 'there is your lord, in the Frankish coat—with the white horse.'"
"Have you not talked to him?"
"Aunt Bessie used to like to talk to nobody but Uncle Frank before they were married."
"I shall talk enough when I am married. I shall make him give me plenty of sweetmeats, and a carriage with two handsome bullocks, and the biggest Nubian black slave in the market to drive me to Sweet Waters, in a thin blue veil, with all my jewels on. Father says that Selim Bey will give me everything, and a Frank governess. What is a governess? Is it anything like the little gold case you have round your neck?"
"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 a pillau, and dry sweetmeats, and roll rose-leaves. What should I learn for?"