sentiments are neither numerous nor complex, and her affections are not trained to lay hold of the abstract or the historical. If you question her, you will find that her heart does not bleed for the poor negro, and she is not in the habit of regarding the Emperor Caligula with abhorrence. She has one or two brothers or sisters, but they are far away and have become almost as historical as Caligula. In these circumstances, if she could not feel motherly towards babies, what feeling would be left to her? And, perhaps, if we knew her story, baby has a charm to open up an old channel, long since dry and choked with the sands of a desert life, in which a gentle stream of tenderness once flowed, with “flowerets of Eden” on its banks, and fertilised her poor nature. But we do not know her story. She says her husband is a cook. More about him she does not say, but she hugs “Sunny Baba” to her breast and kisses him and says that nothing shall ever part her from him till he grows to be a great _saheb_, with plenty of pay, when he will pension her and take care of her in her old age. And her eyes get moist, for she means it more or less; but next day she catches a cold and refuses food, saying that all her bones ache and her head is revolving; then the horror of dying among strangers, “unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,” proves too much for the faithful creature, and she disappears without notice, leaving her darling and its mother to look out for another _Ayah_. It is a fortunate thing for us that the Ayah is able to conceive such a devouring passion for our children, for it appears, from her own statements, that but for this strong tie, nothing would induce her to stay a day in our service where the constant broils with the other servants, into which she is driven by her determination to be faithful to her own mistress, make life almost unbearable to a peaceable woman like her. The chief object of her righteous indignation is the “Bootrail.” She is so reluctant to make any personal complaint, that she would pass over his grudging her a little sugar in her morning tea, but when he takes away a whole cupful for his own children, conscience compels her to tell her mistress. She has often pointed out to him that such conduct is not right, and tried to reason with him, but he only insults her. The cook, being a notorious inebriate, plays into the “Bootrail’s” hand, on condition that the latter will not tell upon him. Why did master send away the dinner last night without touching it? Because the cook was on the floor and the _matie_ had to do the work. Chh! Chh! Chh! It is very shameful and makes her feel so bad. She herself is a teetotaler, as her mistress knows. That night when she was found with a pillow in her arms instead of the baby, singing to it and patting it to sleep, she had been smoking an English cheroot which a friend had given her, and, as she is accustomed only to country tobacco, it went to her head and stupefied her.