Excerpt from Ayesha of the Bosphorus: A Romance of Constantinople They settled themselves comfortably around a small table, ordered coffee, and began to smoke Turkish cigarettes silently, in Oriental fashion. The coffee soon came. Under the spell of coffee, tobacco, and the scent of Wisteria blossoms roofing them in, dreamily viewing the fairy-like scene spread before them, they might have spent half the afternoon there, oblivious of the American College for Girls, of commencement, of the purpose of their trip for so the Orient brings Lotus-like forgetfulness upon one; but Prentice looked at his watch, began to grunt, and to fumble in his pocket for coins. Time to be going, he said, and beckoning the waiter, paid him. All got up slowly stretching themselves, shaking off the charming sense of infinite repose and lethargy which had settled on them - and began the further ascent to Scutari and to the American College. When they arrived all was bustle and excitement. The Montenegrin gate-keeper, dressed for the occasion in gorgeously gold braided costume, his belt stuck full of long, murderous-looking pistols and of Turkish daggers, admitted them, smiling. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.