“God grant it!” said Harold fervently. “Were Premi, who is so conversant with everything regarding Hindu zenanas, to be able to assist my dear wife in her work there, she would be an untold blessing to us all. Thákar Dás will be compelled to quit the fort, and I hope to be able to purchase it. I have been writing by this mail to Clarence, Ida, and other friends, to collect means for making the purchase.” “And what would you do with the large building if you had it?” asked Alicia. “I should find abundant use for it, my love. There would be space not only for a boys’ school, a prayer-room, and library, but for a place where converts might sleep. And—what think you, my Alicia?—might there not, in the women’s apartments, which are, as you know, in a separate quarter, be collected little Hindu girls from the town to form a small school, a little centre of light, to be presided over by my dear wife?” “With Premi to teach under her!” exclaimed Robin. “I think this is rather like building in cloudland,” observed Alicia, but she smiled as she spoke. “If Premi is to be a teacher, she must be a learner first,” said Robin; “anyways, Miss Miranda Macfinnis should know how to read.” “I will begin to teach her to-morrow,” said Alicia. The task proved harder than that of persuading Miranda to adopt English costume. Robin made an alphabet in large Roman letters, to master which was to be Miss Macfinnis’s first step on the ladder of learning. “I will teach her four or five letters each day,” Alicia had remarked, “and the alphabet will be mastered in a week.” But a week passed, and all the young teacher’s efforts had not enabled her pupil to see clearly the difference between an A and an O. “Miranda is dreadfully dull at learning, though quick at everything else,” sighed Alicia, when confiding her new trouble to Robin. “She, an English-born woman nearly sixteen years old, will not master the English alphabet.” “Why not try the Gurmuki?”[10] suggested Robin; “it will be easier for one who knows no language but Panjabi to learn the familiar sounds.” Footnote 10: Gurmuki is the character in which Panjabi is usually written. “I do not know the Gurmuki alphabet myself,” observed Alicia, with a slight shrug of her shoulders. “Oh! I’ll teach you both, if you will be my pupils,” cried Robin. “Kripá Dé would have taught you better, no doubt; but as we’ve sent him off to Lahore for safety and further education, you must accept me as a master in default of a better. Premi is too shy of Harold to learn from him.”