e in the story of the world's first
civilization; but she had gone further in her friendship with Michael
Amory and in her knowledge of things Mohammedan. He had helped her to
unravel the skein of difficulties which Egypt's three distinct and
widely-different civilizations had presented to her--the period of
ancient Egypt, the period which we now call Coptic or Early Christian
and the period of the Arab invasion, with its importation of a
Mohammedan civilization. Traces of all these distinct civilizations
and religions perpetually come to light in the work of excavation.
Nothing puzzled the girl more than the fact that while digging on an
ancient Egyptian site, her brother seemed to find Christian and
Mohammedan relics. But even when he was speaking of interesting events
in comparatively modern Egyptian history, which he took for granted she
would appreciate and understand, Margaret felt disgracefully ignorant.

So Michael took her in hand and he thoroughly enjoyed the work of
helping her to grasp some of the essential points which would clear her
mind before she started upon her serious reading. She had begun taking
lessons in Arabic with Michael who could speak it fluently but could
neither read nor write it, the written and spoken language being
entirely different.

Margaret's quickness astonished him. He was ignorant of her record at
college.

He was now having an example of her capacity for learning which she did
at a pace which rather unnerved him. Margaret learnt a language as she
learned the geography of a city. She would quietly and composedly
study a map until the "sense" of the city was in her brain. In
beginning her study of Arabic she explained to her brother that she
must first of all try to grasp the "sense" of the language.

"I want a map of it, Freddy--you know what I mean."

And Freddy did know. The Lampton type of brain was familiar to him,
and his own method of absorbing languages, or any of the subjects which
he had had to study for his examinations, was exactly similar to
Margaret's, so he set Michael and their Arabic master on the right
track.

As a rule, the Arabic alphabet takes a student about three weeks to
learn. Margaret, with apparently very little trouble, mastered it in
one; it took Michael almost a month. Yet Margaret knew that she was
not grasping things with any ease or quickness; she felt too unsettled
and impatient. She was "dying," as she expressed it, to push on