She turned over the leaves more eagerly than ever now, and she found in that and the two other magazines many pictured faces of men of all ages, but each one brought her a fresh disappointment.
"He is not here," she said, mournfully; "and it was he who taught me to—to—to read—read books."
She had found two words now that were like little windows, for through them she could see a world of wonderful things that she had not seen before.
"Read" and "books."
The three magazines were no longer "talking leaves" to her, although they were really beginning to talk. Her head ached, and her eyes were burning hot, as she gazed so intently at word after word of the page which happened to be open before her. It was not printed like the rest—less closely, and not in such a thronging mass of little black spots of letters. It was a piece of very simple poetry, in short lines and brief stanzas, and Rita was staring at its title.
The letters slowly came to her one by one, bringing behind them the first word of the title; but they seemed to Rita to be in her own brain more than on the paper.
It was a hard moment for Rita.
"He made me say them one word at a time. He was so good to me! Yes, I can say them now! I know what they mean! Oh, so long ago! so long ago!"
There was no longer any doubt about it. Rita could read English.
Not very easily or rapidly at first, and many of the words she came to puzzled her exceedingly. Perhaps some of them also would come back to her after a while. Some of them had always been strangers, for the very brightest little girls of seven or eight, even when they read well and have their fathers to help them, are but at the beginning of their acquaintance with "hard words."