reading her
pocket-Bible and indulging in paroxysms of tears. The only incident in
the book I remember is that this lachrymose child had an aunt, a Miss
Fortune, who objected on principle to clean stockings. She accordingly
dyed all Ellen's stockings dirt-colour, to save the washing. It would
be charitable to assume that this particular Member of Parliament had
an aunt with the same economical instincts.

I must plead guilty to two episodes where my sole desire was to avoid
disappointment to others, and to prevent the reality falling short of
the expectation. One was in India. Barrackpore, the Viceroy of India's
official country house, is justly celebrated for its beautiful gardens.
In these gardens every description of tropical tree, shrub and flower
grows luxuriantly. In a far-off corner there is a splendid group of
fan-bananas, otherwise known as the "Traveller's Palm." Owing to the
habit of growth of this tree, every drop of rain or dew that falls on
its broad, fan-shaped crown of leaves is caught, and runs down the
grooved stalks of the plant into receptacles that cunning Nature has
fashioned just where the stalk meets the trunk. Even in the driest
weather, these little natural tanks will, if gashed with a knife, yield
nearly a tumblerful of pure sweet water, whence the popular name for
the tree. A certain dull M.P., on his travels, had come down to
Barrackpore for Sunday, and inquired eagerly whether there were any
Travellers' Trees either in the park or the gardens there, as he had
heard of them, but had never yet seen one. We assured him that in the
cool of the evening we would show him quite a thicket of Travellers'
Trees. It occurred to the Viceroy's son and myself that it would be a
pity should the globe-trotting M.P.'s expectations not be realised,
after the long spell of drought we had had. So the two of us went off
and carefully filled up the natural reservoirs of some six fan-bananas
with fresh spring-water till they were brimful. Suddenly we had a
simultaneous inspiration, and returning to the house we fetched two
bottles of light claret, which we poured carefully into the natural
cisterns of two more trees, which we marked. Late in the afternoon we
conducted the M.P. to the grove of Travellers' Trees, handed him a
glass, and made him gash the stem of one of them with his pen knife.
Thanks to our preparation, it gushed water like one of the Trafalgar
Square fountains, and the touring legislator was able