and color is a matter which we narrow—­minded dwellers in the North find it impossible to be liberal about.  Not by five-and-twenty shades, at the least, did the trim creature resemble any lily of the valley but a very dark one; and of the rose she was totally unsuggestive.  If I had been so cosmopolitan as to make love to her, she could not have called up a blush to save her pretty little soul and body.  She might have turned green or yellow, for aught I know, but by no possibility could she have done what she ought to have done.

At Fyzabad there is but little to see, and that little is rather uninteresting.  What impressed me there, more than anything else, was a particular private dwelling, and especially a certain room in it.  The edifice to which I refer belonged to an opulent Mohammedan, and had been erected by an English architect.  Being constructed pretty closely on the model of a mansion in Belgravia, it was wholly unsuited in a hot climate to any purpose except that of torture.  In all probability, its constructor, as he roasted over his work, omitted of set intention to fit it up with fireplaces.  In this omission, however, there was a breach of contract, for in all its details the building was to be thoroughly English.  The defect was pointed out at the last moment, and strict injunctions were given to repair it.  Fireplaces there must be, and a full complement of them.  The matter was finally compromised by providing a single small square room at the top of the house with one in each of its side walls.  In the same spirit of determination not to come short of the mark, a rich Bengalee baboo whom I once knew furnished his drawing-room, a large apartment, with thirty-two round tables and an equal number of musical boxes.

A great deal more might be said of Oude as I saw it, but the region, since it became English territory, has been so often and so fully described that I forbear to dwell on it.  At Lucknow, its capital, I spent a week as guest of Sir Henry Sleeman, with whom, from that time to the end of his life, I was in constant correspondence.  That Sir Henry was a man altogether out of the common must be evident from his various publications.  I came to know his mind on most subjects very intimately.  In every respect he was original and peculiar, and but for a rooted aversion to anything like Boswellism I might here depict a character such as one seldom meets with in these days.  To his personal influence it was largely owing that for many a long year the annexation of Oude to the Indian empire was suspended in disastrous balance.

FITZEDWARD HALL.

ONCE AND AGAIN.

Once and again I have nestled in the lap of a small village and wondered at the necessity of any world beyond my peaceful horizon.  Once and again, after long years, I have entered the old school-room with the fearful and impatient heart of a boy:  I have paced the play-ground and gone to and fro in the village streets singing, but the song I once sang came not again to my lips, for it no longer suited the time or the occasion.