When he'd first begun that, he would have balked at that. He had nearly given up when he was told he would have to learn twenty-six letters with all their names and shapes and sounds. Then she had slowly introduced him to all these strange other symbols that showed up in the book that indicated when a person was talking or when a sentence was concluded. He scarcely still understood the point of all those. Yet he'd overcome much of the worst of it and being told there was so much more did not seem to bother him overly much.

"As you say," he said though hardly as dismissively as he had in the past. For a moment he frowned thoughtfully, worried that perhaps there was an end to the conversation. He quickly latched onto something more cheerful. "You'd like those mirrors I was given," he said almost stupidly. "They're... very pretty like."

He assumed she liked nothing more than pretty things.