to the fish.  It is too hot to go out much except very early in the morning and again after tea.  We read and write and work till luncheon, then go to bed and try to sleep till tea-time.  We waken hot and very cross, and it is the horridest thing to get up and get into a dress that seems to fasten with millions of hooks and buttons.  My old Bella is back with me, but she has found a mistress whose temper has shortened as the temperature has risen.  Yesterday she fumbled so fastening my dress that I jumped round on her, stamped my foot, and said, “Bella, I shall slap you in a minute,” She replied in such a reproving tone, “Oh!  Missee Baba.”  Tea makes one feel better, and then there is tennis and a drive in the cool of the evening.

Mosquitoes are a great trial.  They don’t worry so much through the day, but at night—­at night, when one with infinite care has examined the inside of the mosquito-curtains to make sure none are lurking, and then, satisfied, has dived into bed and tucked the curtain carefully round, and is just going off to sleep—­buzz-z-z sounds the hateful thing, and all hope of a quiet night is gone.  The other night I woke and found G. springing all over her bed like a kangaroo.  At first I thought she had gone mad, dog-like, with the heat, but it turned out she was only stalking a mosquito.

Yesterday we all went—­Mrs. Townley, Sister Anna Margaret, G., and I—­to the Calcutta Zoo.  We fed the monkeys with buns, watched the loathly little snakes crawl among the grass in their cages, and then G. began gratuitously to insult a large fierce tiger by poking at it with her sunshade.

It wasn’t a kind thing to do, for it is surely bad enough to be caged without having a sunshade poked at one, and evidently the tiger thought so, for it lashed its tail and its roars shook the cage.  We went home, and retribution followed swift and sure.

The first floor of the house consists of the drawing-room and two enormous bedrooms, one opening into the other, and both opening by several windows on to the verandah.  Sister Anna Margaret is in one, G. and I in the other.  We have two beds, but they are drawn close together and covered by a mosquito-curtain.  Last night we went to bed in our usual gay spirits and fell asleep.  It seemed to me that we were in the Zoo again and the tiger was fiercer than ever.  It hit the bars with its great paw, and to my horror I saw that the bars were giving.  I ran, but it was too late.  The beast was out of the cage and coming after me with great bounds.  My legs went round in circles and made no progress, as legs do in dreams; the tiger sprang—­and I woke.  At first I lay quiet, too thankful to find myself in bed to think about anything else; then I sniffed.

“Olivia?” said G.  “Do you notice it?”

“What?” I asked.

“That awful smell of Zoo.”

Of course that was it.  I had been wondering what was the curious smell.  My first thought—­an awful one—­was that the tiger had actually broken loose, tracked us home, and was now under the bed waiting to devour us.  There was nothing to hinder it but a mosquito-curtain!  How I accomplished it, paralysed as I was with terror, I know not, but I took a flying leap and landed on G., hitting her nose with my head and clutching wildly at her brawny arms, much developed with tennis, as my only refuge.