HAPPY DAYS. HAROLD allowed himself but a brief honeymoon; but it was as bright as it was brief, especially to the young wife. The happiness of Alicia was undisturbed by the petty cares which, like musquitoes in the sunniest hours, occasionally buzzed about her husband. The very anxiety which Harold felt to shield his bride from the slightest annoyance or even inconvenience added considerably to his cares. It was he who had to think about ways and means. The young husband had believed that by economy on himself he had saved enough of rupees to supply every probable want; but expenses came on which he had not sufficiently reckoned. Both at Colonel Graham’s house, after the marriage, and at the bungalow lent by a friend of Alicia, there seemed to be no end to demands for bakhshish (tips). Khitmatgars, khansamars, chankidars, “all the others that end in _ar_,” and a great many others that do not, came smiling and saláming, and hailing the young bridegroom as father and mother, and nourisher of the poor, even as flies gather round honey. It was not in Harold’s nature to be stingy, especially at so joyful a time. His stock of money appeared to melt like snow; he would have barely enough, he saw, to cover travelling expenses. Yet, after all, what were such cares when Alicia was beside him? Sometimes he forgot them altogether. When their conversation was on spiritual subjects, then, most of all, Harold realized what a treasure he had in his wife. At other times the expression of innocent joy and pleasant hopes flowed like a rippling stream from the lips of Alicia. “We shall have a girls’ school, dearest,” she said to her husband as she sat with her hand clasped in his; “I have been taken to such nice ones by missionary ladies. I was charmed to see the rows of little girls with shining black eyes, gay chaddars, and such a quantity of glittering jewels. When I have such schools of my own I shall feel like a hen in the midst of her brood of chickens. How delightful, too, it will be to carry happiness into zenanas, to go like a welcome messenger proclaiming to captives that they are free! I do long to see the delight pictured on the dark faces of those who have never before heard the glad tidings! Oh, what a blessed lot is mine!” Harold met with a smile the smile on the fair young face upturned towards his, yet felt that he must put some sober tints into Alicia’s bright picture. “You must remember, my love,” he observed, “that the work in Talwandi is rather that of clearing and breaking up ground than that of reaping a harvest. You must be prepared for some difficulties in a new station like ours, which has been worked for scarcely a year. When my father was moved to the Panjab he had a new language to learn, and not one of his native helpers beside him. He has had at Talwandi very uphill and rather discouraging work.” “Was not your father grieved to leave his old station and friends?” asked Alicia.