"Eat more butter and grow fat," replied that little coquette. "Dress in bright colours and redden thy lips. And thou mightest use that powder the mems have to make their skins fair. Inaiyut saith he will buy me some in the bazaar. That is true wisdom; the other is for wrinkles."
Despite this cold water, the very next London post-mark brought matters to a crisis.
"Is that all?" asked Feroza dismally, when her father-in-law, the Moulvie, had duly intoned her husband's letter. "It looks, oh! it looks ever so much more on paper."
The old Mohammedan stared through his big horn-rimmed spectacles at her reluctant finger feeling its way along the crabbed writing.
"Quite enough for a good wife, daughter-in-law," he replied. "Bring my pipe, and thank God he is well."
As she sat fanning the old man duteously, her mind was full of suspicion. Could she have compressed the desire and love of her heart into a few well-turned sentences? Ah! if she could only learn to read for herself. The thought found utterance in a tentative remark that it would save the Moulvie trouble if she were a scholar.
"'Tis not much trouble," said the old man courteously; "the letters are not long."
The effect of these words surprised him into taking off his spectacles, as if this new departure of quiet Feroza's could be better seen by the naked eye.
"So thou thinkest to learn all the Meer has learnt?" he asked scornfully, when her eloquence abated. "Wah illah! What? Euclidus and Algebra, Political Economy and Justinian?"
The desire of the girl's heart was not this, but jealousy and shame combined prevented her declaring the real standard of her aims, so she replied defiantly, "Why not? I can learn the Koran fast--oh, ever so fast."