abby crape was tied round her hat, and she
carried a sad little wreath.

Since coming back from Agra we have stayed at the Grand Hotel. It is a
comfortable, airy place, wonderfully pleasant in the morning when we
sit at a little table in the verandah looking out on the Maidan, and
flat-faced hill-waiters bring us an excellent breakfast. Our own
servants are with us--Autolycus and Bella. When we arrived very early
in the morning and the coolies were carrying up our luggage, a servant
sleeping outside his master's door held up his hand for quietness,
saying something quite gently about not waking his master, "Beat him,"
said Autolycus to the coolies quite without heat, as he hurried on.

The air gets hotter, and everything looks more and more tired every
day. Even proud-pied April dressed in all its trim can't put a spirit
of youth into anything.

But these last days in Calcutta, in spite of fears and heat, are very
pleasant. I don't know how I could have said the Calcutta women were
horrid! Now that I am going to leave them they seem so kind and
attractive. Every minute of my time is filled up with river-picnics,
garden-parties, tennis tournaments, dinners and theatre parties; and
my mornings are spent with G. raking in queer shops for curiosities.
I am insatiable for things to take home, and Autolycus has packed and
roped three large wooden boxes containing my treasures.

I wish life weren't such a mixed thing. Just when I am tiptoeing on
the heights of joy because I am going home, I am brought to common
earth with a thud by the miserable thought that I must leave Boggley.
(How pleasant it would be to have a sort of spiritual whipping-boy
to bear the nasty things in life for one--the disappointments, the
worries, the times of illness and sorrow, the partings.) Boggley
says it will be all right once I am away. As a rule he only feels
pleasantly home-sick. Now, with the preparations for departure
constantly before him, helping to address boxes to the familiar old
places, going with me in imagination from port to port till we reach
cool Western lands, I'm afraid he has many a pang.

I am so sorry you are so worried. You will almost have got my letter
by this time, but I wish I had cabled as you asked, only, somehow, I
didn't like the idea. I thought you knew I cared; but, after all, how
could you? I didn't know myself when I left England. Looking back I
seem always to have cared immensely. How could I help it? What I