"'Thieving time is woman's crime,'" I said, quoting a domestic proverb. "In another household you would be left behind."
"Of course," she replied, such summary discipline seeming to her as appropriate as to an European child. "I don't like always to deserve the vine and receive the nuts."
"You must take which I like," I retorted, laughing. Satisfied or silenced, she hastened to dress, and enjoyed with unalloyed delight the unusual pleasure of inspecting dresses and jewellery, and making more purchases in a day than she had expected to be able to do in two years. But she and her companions acted with more consideration than ladies permitted to visit the shops of Europe show for their masculine escort. Eivé alone, on this as on other occasions, availed herself thoroughly of those privileges of childhood which I had always extended to her.
So quick are the proceedings and so excellent the arrangements of Martial commerce, even where ladies are concerned, that a couple of hours saw us on our way homeward, after having passed through the apartments of half the merchants in Altasfe. Purposely for my own pleasure, as well as for that of my companions, I took a circuitous route homeward, and in so doing came within sight of a principal feminine Nursery or girls' school. Recognising it, Eunané spoke with some eagerness—
"Ah! I spent nine years there, and not always unhappily."
Eveena, who sat beside me, pressed my hand, with an intention easily understood.
"And you would like to see it again?" I inquired in compliance with her silent hint.
"Not to go back," said Eunané. "But I should like to pay it a visit, if it were possible."
"Can we?" I asked Eveena.
"I think so," she answered. "I observe half a dozen people have gone in since we came in sight, and I fancy it is inspection day there."