Haleema, the little Syrian girl, who was helping Maggie in her dish-washing, paused in her singing to listen to Angelina's accounts of the wonderful adventures that Mr. Blair had had in the West.
"Ho!" said Haleema, "it ain't nothing to go bear-hunting, if you don't get killed. Why, I've had two uncles and ten cousins killed by the Turks," and then she went on singing cheerfully,—
"'As quick as you're able set neatly the table,
And first lay the table-cloth square;
And then on the table-cloth, bright and clean table-cloth,
Napkins arrange with due care.'"
The air to which she sang was "Little Buttercup," and her voice was clear and sweet, but as she began the second stanza,—
"'Put plates in their places at regular spaces,'"
Angelina interrupted her. "This isn't the time for singing this song, this is dish-washing time;" and, overawed by Angelina's imperative manner, Haleema was silenced.
As to the lecture itself, it is needless to say that Philip a few evenings later had an appreciative audience. All the girls were in a twitter at the prospect of this their first entertainment, Angelina most of all. She had arranged her hair in an elaborate coiffure, which, she informed Haleema, she had copied from a hairdresser's window in Washington Street.
"Ah, then, perhaps you have one of those things—a whip, I think they call it?"
"A what?"