He watched the crowd of friends wildly waving handkerchiefs; but he watched, above all, with a long, long gaze of inarticulate grief, a dark turbaned figure, that stood conspicuously apart, with a small white object in his arms: watched almost breathlessly, till it faded away into one general blur. The Bengal civilian who sat next to Major Bowen in the tender, stared at him in contemptuous astonishment. He had been twenty-five years in the country (mitigating his exile with as much furlough--sick, privilege, and otherwise--as he could possibly obtain), and this was the first time he had seen a man quit the shores of India--with _tears in his eyes_! THE BETRAYAL OF SHERE BAHADUR. I am merely the wife of a British subaltern, whereas my aunt Jane is the consort of a commissioner. One must go to India, to realize the enormous and unfathomable gulf which yawns between these two positions. Take, for instance, that important difference--the difference in pay. On the first of each month, Aunt Jane’s lord and master receives several thousand and odd rupees--a heavy load for two staggering peons to carry from the treasury--whereas my husband’s poor little pittance, of two hundred and fifty-six rupees and odd annas, our bearer swings in a lean canvas bag, and in one hand, with an air of jaunty contempt! At dinner-parties and other grand functions, I see my aunt’s round-shouldered back, and well-known yellow satin, leading the van, with her hand on the host’s arm, whilst I humbly bring up the rear--one of the last joints in the tail of precedence. Afterwards--after coffee, conversation, and music--not a woman in the room may venture to stir, until my little fat relative has “made the move” and waddled off to her carriage. Mr. Radcliffe, my uncle by marriage, rules over a large district; he is a stout, puffy, imposing-looking man, attended by much pomp and circumstance, and many scarlet-clad chuprassis. His wife rules him--as well as the station; manages every one’s affairs, acts as the censor of public morals, and may be implicitly relied upon to utter the disagreeable things that _ought_ to be said, but that no one but herself is willing to say. The Radcliffes have no family, and therefore she has ample time to indulge her fine powers of observation, organization, and conversation. When I married, and was about to come to India, a year ago, my people remarked on an average once a week--