n and never a European lady. He
has no small talk. His mind is full of schemes of moral and political
improvement, and his zeal boils over in his talk. His topics, even
in courtship, are steam navigation, the education of the natives, the
equalisation of the sugar duties, the substitution of the Roman for the
Arabic alphabet in the Oriental languages.

I saw the feeling growing from the first; for, though I generally pay
not the smallest attention to those matters, I had far too deep an
interest in Nancy's happiness not to watch her behaviour to everybody
who saw much of her. I knew it, I believe, before she knew it herself;
and I could most easily have prevented it by merely treating Trevelyan
with a little coldness, for he is a man whom the smallest rebuff would
completely discourage. But you will believe, my dearest Margaret, that
no thought of such base selfishness ever passed through my mind. I
would as soon have locked my dear Nancy up in a nunnery as have put the
smallest obstacle in the way of her having a good husband. I therefore
gave every facility and encouragement to both of them. What I have
myself felt it is unnecessary to say. My parting from you almost broke
my heart. But when I parted from you I had Nancy; I had all my other
relations; I had my friends; I had my country. Now I have nothing except
the resources of my own mind, and the consciousness of having acted not
ungenerously. But I do not repine. Whatever I suffer I have brought on
myself. I have neglected the plainest lessons of reason and experience.
I have staked my happiness without calculating the chances of the dice.
I have hewn out broken cisterns; I have leant on a reed; I have built on
the sand; and I have fared accordingly. I must bear my punishment as
I can; and, above all, I must take care that the punishment does not
extend beyond myself.

Nothing can be kinder than Nancy's conduct has been. She proposes that
we should form one family; and Trevelyan, (though, like most lovers, he
would, I imagine, prefer having his goddess to himself,) consented with
strong expressions of pleasure. The arrangement is not so strange as
it might seem at home. The thing is often done here; and those quarrels
between servants, which would inevitably mar any such plan in England,
are not to be apprehended in an Indian establishment. One advantage
there will be in our living together of a most incontestable sort; we
shall both be able to save more money. T