ur or five letters of her alphabet daily, questioning
her as to each. Every day I repeated the lesson learnt on the previous
one, and added four or five more letters. Her alphabet sounds as
follows:

+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+
| a | e | i | o | u | au | ei |
| - | - | - | - | - | - | -- |
| 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 |
+-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+
| b & p | d & t | f & v | s & k | ch | ue | h |
| ----- | ----- | ----- | ----- | -- | -- | -- |
| 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 20 | 21 | 24 |
+-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+
| l | m | n | r | s | w | z |
| -- | -- | - | - | -- | -- | -- |
| 25 | 26 | 27 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 |
+-------|-------|-------|-------|-----|------|------+
| | | ja | nein | | | |
| | | -- | ---- | | | |
| | | 2 | 3 | | | |
+-------+-------+-------+-------+-----+------+------+

It is particularly to be observed that the letters were pronounced as
follows: K as k,' not as ka ( = kay); H as h,' not as ha ( = aitch); R
as r, not as er ( = ar;) L as l,' not as el: this was so as to free her
"writing" of any extraneous difficulties. Rolf of Mannheim rapped out
the "e" in "w" ( = _vay_ being the German pronunciation of "w"), as
also in "g" ( = _gay_ being the German pronunciation of "g"); thus, if
he wanted to write "wegen," he simply rapped "w g n." Now, I wanted
Lola to learn to rap the entire word--"wegen," for instance, for this
simplification of expression, as put into practice by Rolf, would be of
no use to her in view of the method of pronunciation I was adopting
with the consonants. Those who had taught Rolf understood his spelling
quite as well as I in time came to understand Lola's, but with regard
to their system the objection was frequently put forward (more
especially by persons bent on maintaining an unfriendly attitude) that
"any construction might be placed on these answers," and, I must admit,
that there was some truth in this. Not that this objection could always
be justified, yet there were sufficient grounds for it. The great value
of Rolf's mode of expressing himself was shown in the way in which he
added lett