To my great delight Miss Flossie told me that she knew the flower well and had tried to grow it in her garden, but without success, adding, however, that as it should be in bloom at this time of the year she thought that she could procure me a specimen.
After that I fell to asking her if she was not lonely up here among all these savage people and without any companions of her own age.
'Lonely ?' she said.

'Oh, indeed no! I am as happy as the day is long, and besides I have my own companions.

Why, I should hate to be buried in a crowd of white girls all just like myself so that nobody could tell the difference! Here,' she said, giving her head a little toss, 'I am I; and every native for miles around knows the "Water-lily", -- for that is what they call me -- and is ready to do what I want, but in the books that I have read about little girls in England it is not like that.

Everybody thinks them a trouble, and they have to do what their schoolmistress likes.

Oh! it would break my heart to be put in a cage like that and not to be free -- free as the air.' 'Would you not like to learn ?' I asked.
'So I do learn.