ays
singularly well-shod.

Perhaps her chief outward characteristic was that she looked
delightfully fresh and clean. Her fair skin helped to this effect, and
the trim suitability of her clothes accentuated it. And yet there was
nothing challenging or particularly noticeable in her personality.

Her face, fresh-coloured and unlined, was rather round. Her eyes
well-opened and blue-grey, long-sighted and extremely honest. Her hair,
thick and naturally wavy, had been what hairdressers call "mid-brown,"
but was now frankly grey, especially round the temples; and the grey
hair puzzled people, so that opinions differed widely regarding her age.

The five box-wallahs (gentlemen engaged in commercial pursuits are so
named in the East to distinguish them from the Heaven-Born in the
various services that govern India), who, with the Australian lady, sat
opposite to her at table, decided that she was really young and
prematurely grey. Between the courses they diligently took stock of her.
The Australian lady disagreed with them. She declared Miss Ross to be
middle-aged, to look younger than she was. In this the Australian lady
was quite sincere. She could not conceive of any _young_ woman
neglecting the many legitimate means that existed of combating this most
distressing semblance--if semblance it was--of age.

The Australian lady set her down as a well-preserved forty at least.

Mr. Frewellen, the oldest and crossest and greediest of the five
box-wallahs, declared that he would lay fifteen rupees to five annas
that she was under thirty; that her eyes were sad, and it was probably
trouble that had turned her hair. At his time of life, he could tell a
young woman when he saw one. No painted old harridan could deceive
_him_. After all, if Miss Ross _had_ grey hair, she had plenty of it,
and it was her own. But Mr. Frewellen, who sat directly opposite her,
was prejudiced in her favour, for she always let him take her roll if it
was browner than his own. He also took her knife if it happened to be
sharper than the one he had, and he insisted on her listening to his
incessant grumbling as to the food, the service, the temperature, and
the general imbecility and baseness of his fellow-creatures.

Like the Ancient Mariner, he held her with his glittering spectacles.
Miss Ross trembled before his diatribes. He spoke in a loud and rumbling
voice, and made derogatory remarks about the other passengers as they
passed to their respecti