"What is it you want to find, my dear?" The voice was strange to Clara, but so sweet and gentle that she felt attracted to the owner of it, even before she had seen her; and when she turned, and met the smiling looks of two little old ladies, whose round dimpled faces, exactly alike, seemed never to have known a care, it was as much as she could do--as she confessed to Aunt Mattie afterwards--to keep herself from hugging them both. "I was looking for a picture," she said, "that has a good subject--and that's well arranged--but badly coloured." The little old ladies glanced at each other in some alarm. "Calm yourself, my dear," said the one who had spoken first, "and try to remember which it was. What _was_ the subject?" "Was it an elephant, for instance?" the other sister suggested. They were still in sight of Lieutenant Brown. "I don't know, indeed!" Clara impetuously replied. "You know it doesn't matter a bit what the subject _is_, so long as it's a good one!" Once more the sisters exchanged looks of alarm, and one of them whispered something to the other, of which Clara caught only the one word "mad." "They mean Aunt Mattie, of course," she said to herself--fancying, in her innocence, that London was like her native town, where everybody knew everybody else. "If you mean my aunt," she added aloud, "she's _there_--just three pictures beyond Lieutenant Brown." "Ah, well! Then you'd better go to her, my dear!" her new friend said, soothingly. "_She'll_ find you the picture you want. Good-bye, dear!" "Good-bye, dear!" echoed the other sister, "Mind you don't lose sight of your aunt!" And the pair trotted off into another room, leaving Clara rather perplexed at their manner. "They're real darlings!" she soliloquised. "I wonder why they pity me so!" And she wandered on, murmuring to herself "It must have two good marks, and----" KNOT VI. HER RADIANCY. "One piecee thing that my have got, Maskee[A] that thing my no can do. You talkee you no sabey what? Bamboo." They landed, and were at once conducted to the Palace. About half way they were met by the Governor, who welcomed them in English--a great relief to our travellers, whose guide could speak nothing but Kgovjnian. "I don't half like the way they grin at us as we go by!" the old man whispered to his son. "And why do they say 'Bamboo!' so often?" "It alludes to a local custom," replied the Governor, who had overheard the question. "Such persons as happen in any way to displease Her Radiancy are usually beaten with rods." [Illustration: "WHY DO THEY SAY 'BAMBOO!' SO OFTEN?"] The old man shuddered. "A most objectional local custom!" he remarked with strong emphasis. "I wish we had never landed! Did you notice that black fellow, Norman, opening his great mouth at us? I verily believe he would like to eat us!"