nd they drank one whole bottle of champagne, hot, because
there was no ice, and Scott and William sat outside the tent in the
starlight till Mrs. Jim drove them in for fear of more fever.

Apropos of these things and some others William said: "Being engaged is
abominable, because, you see, one has no official position. We must be
thankful we've lots of things to do."

"Things to do!" said Jim, when that was reported to him. "They're
neither of them any good any more. I can't get five hours' work a day
out of Scott. He's in the clouds half the time."

"Oh, but they're so beautiful to watch, Jimmy. It will break my heart
when they go. Can't you do anything for him?"

"I've given the Government the impression--at least, I hope I have--that
he personally conducted the entire famine. But all he wants is to get on
to the Luni Canal Works, and William's just as bad. Have you ever heard
'em talking of barrage and aprons and waste-water? It's their style of
spooning, I suppose."

Mrs. Jim smiled tenderly. "Ah, that's in the intervals--bless 'em."

And so Love ran about the camp unrebuked in broad daylight, while men
picked up the pieces and put them neatly away of the Famine in the Eight
Districts.

* * * * *

Morning brought the penetrating chill of the Northern December, the
layers of wood-smoke, the dusty grey-blue of the tamarisks, the domes
of ruined tombs, and all the smell of the white Northern plains, as the
mail-train ran on to the mile-long Sutlej Bridge. William, wrapped in
a poshteen--a silk-embroidered sheepskin jacket trimmed with rough
astrakhan--looked out with moist eyes and nostrils that dilated
joyously. The South of pagodas and palm-trees, the overpopulated Hindu
South, was done with. Here was the land she knew and loved, and before
her lay the good life she understood, among folk of her own caste and
mind.

They were picking them up at almost every station now--men and women
coming in for the Christmas Week, with racquets, with bundles of
polo-sticks, with dear and bruised cricket-bats, with fox-terriers and
saddles. The greater part of them wore jackets like William's, for the
Northern cold is as little to be trifled with as the Northern heat. And
William was among them and of them, her hands deep in her pockets, her
collar turned up over her ears, stamping her feet on the platforms as
she walked up and down to get warm, visiting from carriage to carriage
and everywhere being cong