Our servants are very
faithful, and some of them speak Dutch well."
"Have you ever been with the waggons?" I asked.
"Since I was a child I have never been more than thirty miles from
Babyan's Peak," she answered. "Do you know, Mr. Allan, that you are,
with one exception, the first Englishman that I have known out of a
book. I suppose that I must seem very wild and savage to you, but I have
had one advantage--a good education. My father has taught me everything,
and perhaps I know some things that you don't. I can read French and
German, for instance. I think that my father's first idea was to let me
run wild altogether, but he gave it up."
"And don't you wish to go into the world?" I asked.
"Sometimes," she said, "when I get lonely. But perhaps my father is
right--perhaps it would frighten and bewilder me. At any rate he would
never return to civilization; it is his idea, you know, although I am
sure I do not know where he got it from, nor why he cannot bear that
our name should be spoken. In short, Mr. Quatermain, we do not make our
lives, we must take them as we find them.
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