space between them.

The brilliance of the Durbar Hall smote the girl painfully. It was as
though the light had power to penetrate and reveal her hidden
perturbation. Without looking up, she felt her mother's eyes upon her;
and the wild-rose tint of her cheeks deepened under their scrutiny.
But she avoided meeting them, and, going straight to her father,
slipped a small hand under his arm. She felt indefinably in need of
protection, not only from the man, whose kiss had moved her more than
he guessed, but from herself, and the new emotions quickening at her
heart; and in all times of trouble she turned spontaneously to her
father. He was the true parent of her spirit; and, but for the
matter-of-fact, half-condescending devotion of three boys at home, Mrs
Mayhew might, at times, have felt left out in the cold.

"Enjoying yourself, little girl?" the father asked, smiling down at her.

"Yes, of course, dear--ever so much," she replied, with brave
untruthfulness; and the lie must have been forgiven her in heaven.

But the veil of enchantment was rent; and no needle of earth has ever
been ground fine enough to draw its frayed edges together.

[1] Long loose coats.

[2] Cross-belt.

CHAPTER X.

"Woman, I grope to find you; but I cannot,
O, is there no way to you, and no path,--
No winding path!"
--S. Phillips.

And the good folk of Chumba,--men, women, and children,--were early
astir on this June day, in whose fiery lap lay hid the luck of the
State for the coming year.

The stone streets of the little town, so steep as to be cut out, here
and there, into a rough semblance of steps, were alive with quickly
moving figures, in holiday attire: which, in the East, is a true
outward and visible sign of its wearer's inward and spiritual sense of
festivity.

Open shop fronts and quaintly carven balconies were noisy with shrill
voices. Every self-respecting house was plastered with fresh mud;
every window and doorway garlanded with marigold and jasmine buds;
every brain, absorbed in the paramount speculation, as to how the
sacrificial buffalo would behave.

At three o'clock, under a blazing sun, the Rajah set out, enthroned on
his State elephant, whose silver howdah and gala trappings formed a
fitting pedestal for the red and gold magnificence of the young prince
himself. Two ropes of pearls hung down to his waist: a huge uncut
emerald made a vivid incident of green upon his gilded ch