Alicia gave a little sigh. Her eyes were opening to the fact that to be a good wife to a devoted worker like Harold would require some amount of self-denial. Time was already beginning to show to the bride that she needed a great deal of training to be fit for the position which she had lately thought the most enviable in the world. The conclusion at which Alicia arrived, as she rather pensively ate her suji, was that she must in future make her appearance a good deal earlier than ten o’clock in the morning. “Already my folly and self-will have involved Harold in trouble,” Alicia said to herself. “If I had taken his advice, I should have waited patiently in the gári till the nat-kat’s temper was subdued, and should not have added the weight of ourselves and our luggage to an already overladen cart. Had I behaved like a sensible woman and not like a silly child, the cart might never have stuck in the mud nor the wheel come off.” Alicia glanced around her and above, surveying her new habitation. “Very bare it looks, I must own; no ceiling to hide the rafters; nothing pretty to adorn the walls. This clearly has never been the residence of a woman. I will soon make mine look brighter than this. I am glad that Harold has promised to leave all the decorations to me. Ah, here come our goods at last!” exclaimed Alicia, springing up joyfully from her chair as Robin, himself carrying a large portmanteau, appeared at the head of a band of coolies, who, after the curious native fashion, bore their heavy loads on their heads instead of their backs. “O Robin, I am so glad to see you. Let the men set down their burdens here in the veranda. You will help me, I know, to open the boxes.” Robin was hungry, and would far rather have taken his place at the breakfast table after a night of toil; but without a word he put down the portmanteau and went off for his tools. Alicia was very eager to have the cases opened, to ascertain that her goods had sustained no injury from the jolting or the fall from the cart. But when the wooden cover of the first large box was raised, and the tin beneath unsoldered (rather a tedious operation), the examination of the contents, slowly extricated from the hay in which they had been packed, was not very satisfactory to their owner. “Oh, my clock—my beautiful clock! The siren broken to pieces! I daresay that the works are useless!” exclaimed Alicia. “I hope not,” said Robin cheerily. “I am a bit of a watchmaker, you know. I hope to set the clock going again, though I cannot undertake to patch up the siren. Here, let me help you. That box is too heavy for your little hands.” “It is my medicine-chest, and full of bottles,” said Alicia. “Oh,” she added in a different tone, “what can have happened? Something inside must have been broken; my hands are all covered with castor-oil! Ugh!”