I thought it would have been much odder (and how infinitely horrible!) if we had all met and never parted.  As it happened, we weren’t allowed to part with her as soon as we could have wished.  She discovered we were staying at the same hotel, so we had to dine together, and she talked the Taj all through dinner, spattering it with adjectives, while Boggley grunted at intervals.  It was refreshing to see Mr. Brand again.  He seems to be enjoying India vastly, and had three quite new stories, though if he didn’t laugh so much telling them it would be easier to see the point.  Boggley and he loved each other at once.  After dinner, when the men were smoking, the Rocking Horse Fly began to get arch—­don’t you hate people when they are arch?—­and said surely I was never going home without capturing some heart.  I replied stoutly and truthfully that I was.

“Naughty girl!” said the R.H.F.  “You haven’t made the most of your opportunities.  Don’t you know what they call girls who come out for the cold weather?”

I said I didn’t.

“They are called ‘The Fishing Fleet,’” she said sweetly.

I said “Oh,” because I didn’t know what else to say, feeling as I did so remiss.

I have heard—­Mr. Townley told me—­that long ago when a ship from England arrived in the Hoogly a cannon was fired, and all the gay bachelors left their offices and went to the docks to appraise the new arrivals.  A ball was given on board on the night of arrival, and many of the girls were engaged before they left the ship.  I don’t object to that.  It was a fine, sincere way of doing things; but why the subject of marriage should be made an occasion for archness, for sly looks, for—­in extreme cases—­nudgings, passes my comprehension.

The R.H.F. has a way of making common any subject she touches—­even the Taj and marriage—­so I thought I would go to bed.  As I said goodnight I regarded attentively the friend, wondering much how anyone could, of choice, accompany the R.H.F. in her journeyings.  She is a very silent person, large and fat and about forty, and her eyes are small out of all proportion to her face, but they twinkled at me in such an understanding way that I, generally so chary of offering embraces, went up to kiss her.  She is kind, but so large that being kissed by her is almost as destroying as being in a railway accident!

Do I ignore what you say in your letter?  You see, it is rather difficult.  Writing to a friend in a far country is like shouting through a speaking-tube to the moon, and one can’t shout very intimate things, can one?

Let us be sensible.  Don’t be angry, but are you quite sure you really care, and is it wise to care?  We are so very different.  You are so very English, and I, in spite of a pink and fluffy exterior, am at heart as bitter and dour and prejudiced as any Covenanter that ever whined a psalm.  My mind could never have anything but a Scots accent.  You are reserved, and rather cold; I am expansive to