whins on the hillsides, and the Loch o'
the Lowes lies steel-grey under the March sky.

THE LAND OF REGRETS

_Calcutta, April 1 (Monday_).

... The flesh-pots of Calcutta are wonderfully pleasant after jungly
fare, and there is something rather nice about a big airy bedroom with
a bathroom to correspond, hot water at will, and an _ayah_ to look
after one's clothes, after the cramped space of a tent, a zinc bath
wiggling on an uneven floor, and Autolycus fumbling vaguely among
one's belongings. I am staying with G. in her sister's, Mrs.
Townley's, very charming house. Boggley had to go off at once on
another short tour, and I was only too pleased to come to this most
comfortable habitation. It is nice to be with G. again, and she has
lots to tell me about her doings--dances, garden-parties, picnics--all
of which she has enjoyed thoroughly. All the same, I would rather have
had my jungle experiences. She and her sister and brother-in-law laugh
greatly at my tales. They regard me as an immense joke, I don't know
why. I think myself I am rather a sensible, serious sort of person.

Mrs. Townley is the kindest woman. She has such a delightful way
of making you feel that you are doing her the greatest favour by
accepting her hospitality. I am not the only guest. A member of a
nursing sisterhood--Sister Anna Margaret--is resting here for a few
days. She wears clothes quite like a nun, but she is the cheeriest
soul, with such contented eyes. She might be a girl, from the interest
she takes in our doings and the way she laughs at our well-meant but
not very witty fun.

Calcutta is very hot. The punkahs go all day--not the flapping kind of
Mofussil punkahs, but things like bits of windmills fastened to poles.
I never like to sit or sleep exactly underneath one, they look so
insecure; besides, they make one so untidy. At a dinner-party it is
really dreadful to have the things flap-flapping above one's carefully
done hair. My hair needs no encouragement to get untidy, and I have
quite an Ophelia-like air before we get 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