wife that he would come as soon as he was

off duty.

The meeting of the two girls (they still hardly deserved a more dignified description) was characteristic of them. Mary was heartily and frankly glad to see Ida, who had interested her much at home, and who had seemed from her letters to be growing. She was affectionate and curious.

Ida felt strangely raised; the excitement of yesterday had not fairly worn off, and here was now another piece of her old life come to look at her and wake her up. She would certainly in her heart of hearts have preferred to be left to live out her new life without any complications of the past, and would have been content if Mary too had not come. on the other hand she had liked Mary, she had spoken to her in the old times as she never had done to any one else. Mary was a woman friend; if not a very desirable, at least a tolerable thing; and there she was now beside her, looking kindly at her. And the

But

old self rose up strong, and the artificial self crumbled (it was her fate that nature and will were both strong; she often put them in opposition, and both could not win), the child in her broke out, and she sat down at Mary's knee, put her head down and cried, not for any special reason, but just because she was greatly shaken.

Mary did not know what to make of this. She had a good deal of penetration, and saw that the girl was not crying for any immediate sorrow, but that it was in some way the overflow of pent-up feeling. She had nothing to tell her what the actual kind of strain was, and jumped hastily to the not unnatural conclusion, 'Surely the husband can't be a success, if she breaks down in this fashion at the sight of one of her own people." She knew Colonel Craven but slightly, and had heard a great deal of good of him; but she knew that what a man is to the world does not prove very much as to what he may be to his wife; and it struck her, as it had done before at Sandford, that VOL. I.

M

it would take very special treatment and comprehension to make the best of Ida, and that she would certainly need to grow into a woman before she would be anything but a rather uncomfortable wife. And now she was older looking, but still noticeably childlike, crying at her knee with a passionate wail that could be accounted for no other way than by abusing the husband, which she accordingly did to herself, and then proceeded to try and console the wife.

"Ida, dear Ida, what does all this mean?" she said. "There now, child," she put her arm round her, "talk, if it is any comfort to you, and be quiet if it is not. This is a very sad greeting, dear."

Ida raised her head, and said a little firmly, "I am very foolish. I don't know what I am crying about, really I don't," but she put it down again, very wearily.

"I daresay not," Mary answered, not shaken in her opinion that the husband was at fault, but like a reasonable woman determined not

to hint at it. "You are just over-excited, and must rest and get quiet again, and look bright, or I shall be sorry that I came."

"Don't talk nonsense, Mary," said the old Ida we know. "I am dazed, so many new things are happening, and the sight of you brought up old times so clearly."

66

Which does not account for its making you miserable," thought Mrs. Maxwell; but she said; "Yes; I understand it does not do to think too much of what one has left behind in our Indian life."

"No, I daresay," said Ida blankly; but Mary did not need the tone to tell her that that sort of thing had nothing to do with Ida's trouble. It would be safest for the present to stick to facts, and she asked,

"Tell me how, on the whole, you like India." "On the whole I don't know," said Ida, roused by the feeling that she must talk some sort of nonsense to keep off more dangerous ground. "I certainly like bits of it very much. I like that picture under the blinds, the cactus,

the oleanders, and the willows at the back. I like my horses, and the long rides. I love bits of the hills where I have never been, where one sees black cliffs and little wooded corners. I like my house, beasts, and birds; but I don't know when you talk about wholes.'

What have become of your books?" said Mary, determined to confess her friend on all safe topics, but, feeling the chatter was an effort, was in no way deluded by it.

My books," answered Ida rather doubtfully. Perhaps that is what I am not sure about. I don't do much with them; I still work a little by fits, but I don't think there is much purpose in it-there is not much there could be, you know," she added rather to herself, as in speaking she realized what a change in her life this absence of books had made, and yet feeling that it was a matter of course that she should leave the books alone, and that nothing could be made of the fact.

"Do you know that Hugh Linwood is