Yet the existence of a white woman in India is not all unalloyed pleasure. Her lot may be cast in some small out-of-the-way Station, where there is little society and less amusement. And even in larger places her life is empty enough. In the morning, perhaps, she goes for a ride and then has to shut herself up in her bungalow on account of the heat, until in the cool of the afternoon she can drive out to play tennis or golf and then go to the club, where she sits on the lawn and talks scandal with her female friends or, possibly, flirts with her male ones. She is not occupied with the cares of the household as is her less fortunate sister in England. Her cook goes to the bazaar early in the morning and then later appears before her to show her his account book and take her orders for the day. And she has little else to do to fill in the long, weary hours in the house from breakfast until tea-time. An occasional caller may come to pay his or her visit; but otherwise the time hangs heavy on her hands. Any accomplishments she may possess are apt to be neglected. Her reading is generally confined to novels from the Club library; and she seldom tries to improve her mind by more strenuous studies. In a land where all the white men are workers, she is idle. And so the English woman in the East is generally uninteresting. The gossip and scandal of the Station are her chief topics. The wonders of the country she lives in, the strange life of the peoples outside her door, the greater questions of Empire, are a sealed book to her; and she is generally as commonplace as her untravelled sisters in English country towns. The clever Mrs Hauksbees that Kipling depicts are rare--more's the pity, for Anglo-Indian society would be brighter if there were more of her type. The petty squabbles among the ladies of a small Station are pitiful. The Anglo-Indian wife too often takes little interest in her husband's work, and so cannot prove very companionable to him. And this probably accounts for the extraordinary latitude he allows her in seeking the society of some particular bachelor with whom she rides, drives and sits in the Club every day, who becomes a standing feature in her life. The _mènage à trois_ flourishes in India.