much too young also--she was not eighteen--and that there was absolutely
nothing for them to marry on. I further pointed out how ungrateful it
would be of him to leave me; that he had been paid regularly for a year,
and that it was not right that now, when he was at last able to do
something besides destroy my property, he should go away.

The boy listened to all I had to say, and agreed with it all, and made
the most fervent and sincere promise to be wise; and he went away after
dinner to see the girl and tell her, and when I awoke in the morning my
other servants told me the boy had not returned.

Shortly afterwards the headman came to say that his daughter had also
disappeared. They had fled, those two, into the forest, and for a week
we heard nothing. At last one evening, as I sat under the great fig-tree
by my tent, there came to me the mother of the girl, and she sat down
before me, and said she had something of great importance to impart: and
this was that all had been arranged between the families, who had found
work for the boy whereby he might maintain himself and his wife, and the
marriage was arranged. But the boy would not return as long as I was in
camp there, for he was bitterly ashamed of his broken vows and afraid to
meet my anger. And so the mother begged me to go away as soon as I
could, that the young couple might return. I explained that I was not
angry at all, that the boy could return without any fear; on the
contrary, that I should be pleased to see him and his wife. And, at the
old lady's request, I wrote a Burmese letter to that effect, and she
went away delighted.

They must have been in hiding close by, for it was early next morning
that the boy came into my tent alone and very much abashed, and it was
some little time before he could recover himself and talk freely as he
would before, for he was greatly ashamed of himself.

But, after all, could he help it?

If you can imagine the tropic night, and the boy, full of high resolve,
passing up the village street, now half asleep, and the girl, with
shining eyes, coming to him out of the hibiscus shadows, and whispering
in his ear words--words that I need not say--if you imagine all that,
you will understand how it was that I lost my servant.

They both came to see me later on in the day after the marriage, and
there was no bashfulness about either of them then. They came
hand-in-hand, with the girl's father and mother and some friends, and