Not that John Church was by any means unappreciative of the beauties of nature. It was because he acknowledged the moral use of them that he came on these Sunday afternoon picnics. He read the poets, and would pay a good price for a bronze or a picture, for much the same reason. They formed part of his system of self-development; he applied them to his mind through the medium which nature has provided, and trusted that the effect would be good. He did it, however, as he did everything, with the greatest possible economy of time, and sometimes other considerations overlapped. That very afternoon he meant to speak to the Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens—the green elbow of the river crooked about this place—concerning the manufacture and distribution of a new febrifuge, and he presently edged away from Mrs. Daye with the purpose of finding out her husband’s views concerning the silting up of river-beds in Bengal and the cost of preventive measures. Life with John Church could be measured simply as an area for effort. [Illustration: Notwithstanding, it was gay enough.] Notwithstanding these considerations, it was gay enough. Captain Thrush, A.D.C., sat on the top of the cabin, and swung his legs to the accompaniment of his amusing experiences the last time he went quail shooting. The St. Georges were there, and the St. Georges were proverbial in Calcutta for lightheartedness. Sir William Scott might have somewhat overweighted the occasion; but Sir William Scott had taken off his hat, the better to enjoy the river-breeze, and this reduced him to a name and a frock coat. In the general good spirits the abnegation and the resolution with which Lewis Ancram and Judith Church occupied themselves with other people might almost have passed unnoticed. Rhoda Daye found herself wondering whether it would be possible for Ancram to be pathetic under the most moving circumstances, so it may be presumed that she perceived it; but the waves of mirth engendered by Captain Thrush and the St. Georges rolled over it so far as the rest were concerned, as they might over a wreck of life and hope. This pretty simile occurred to Miss Daye, who instantly dismissed it as mawkish, but nevertheless continued, for at least five minutes, to reflect on the irony of fate, as, for the moment, she helped to illustrate it. A new gravity fell upon her for that period, as she sat there and watched Judith Church talking to Sir William Scott about his ferns. For the first time she became aware that the situation had an edge to it—that she was the edge. She was the saturnine element in what she had hitherto resolutely regarded as a Calcutta comedy; she was not sure that she could regard it as a comedy any longer, even from the official point of view. Ancram evidently had it in mind to make an exhibition to the world in general, and to Mrs. Church in particular, of devotion to his betrothed. She caught him once or twice in the act of gratefully receiving Mrs.