I can't imagine how such ideas come up in your mind. If _I_ were
to try all day, I'm sure I should never hit upon them!" Which was so
perfectly true as to be a trifle obvious.

Sir Ivor, not being interested in temples, but in steel rails, had gone
on at once to his concession, or contract, or whatever else it was, on
the north-east frontier, leaving his wife to follow and rejoin him in
the Himalayas as soon as she had exhausted the sights of India. So,
after a few dusty weeks of wear and tear on the Indian railways, we met
him once more in the recesses of Nepaul, where he was busy constructing
a light local line for the reigning Maharajah.

If Lady Meadowcroft had been bored at Allahabad and Ajmere, she was
immensely more bored in a rough bungalow among the trackless depths of
the Himalayan valleys. To anybody with eyes in his head, indeed, Toloo,
where Sir Ivor had pitched his headquarters, was lovely enough to keep
one interested for a twelvemonth. Snow-clad needles of rock hemmed it
in on either side; great deodars rose like huge tapers on the hillsides;
the plants and flowers were a joy to look at. But Lady Meadowcroft did
not care for flowers which one could not wear in one's hair; and what
was the good of dressing here, with no one but Ivor and Dr. Cumberledge
to see one? She yawned till she was tired; then she began to grow
peevish.

"Why Ivor should want to build a railway at all in this stupid, silly
place," she said, as we sat in the veranda in the cool of evening,
"I'm sure _I_ can't imagine. We MUST go somewhere. This is maddening,
maddening! Miss Wade--Dr. Cumberledge--I count upon you to discover
SOMETHING for me to do. If I vegetate like this, seeing nothing all day
long but those eternal hills"--she clenched her little fist--"I shall go
MAD with ennui."

Hilda had a happy thought. "I have a fancy to see some of these Buddhist
monasteries," she said, smiling as one smiles at a tiresome child whom
one likes in spite of everything. "You remember, I was reading that book
of Mr. Simpson's on the steamer--coming out--a curious book about the
Buddhist Praying Wheels; and it made me want to see one of their temples
immensely. What do you say to camping out? A few weeks in the hills? It
would be an adventure, at any rate."

"Camping out?" Lady Meadowcroft exclaimed, half roused from her languor
by the idea of a change. "Oh, do you think that would be fun? Should
we sleep on the ground? But, wouldn't it be