Thus many a quarterstaff was being diligently whittled that evening, and down in the butchers' quarter even deadlier weapons were being talked of openly by its inhabitants, the most truculent of all the mixed races and trades with which rulers have to deal. John Raby, doing his judicial work in the big court-house outside the town, felt, with that sharp, half-cunning perception of concealed things which he possessed so pre-eminently, that there was mischief brewing, and drove round by the executive official's house in order to tell him so. The latter assured him that the newly-elected municipal committee were fully alive to the necessity for precautions; whereat the young man shrugged his shoulders and said he was glad to hear it. He mentioned it casually to Belle with a sneer, which he did not allow himself in public, at the crass stupidity of needlessly setting race against race by premature haste to confer the blessings of vestrydom on India. And Belle agreed, since, even with the limited experience of the past year, she had learnt a sort of reverence for the old ways, which seem so irredeemably bad to the unsympathetic philanthropy of the West. For a whole year had passed since the fateful letter announcing the legacy had come to disturb the foundations of her world. It had had surprisingly little effect on her, chiefly because she was determined that her life must run in one ordered groove. There must be no mistake or fiasco, nothing but what she considered decent, orderly, virtuous. Uninteresting, no doubt; but it is nevertheless true that a very large number of women are born into the world with an unhesitating preference for behaving nicely; women who can no more help being longsuffering, cheerful, and self-forgetful, than they can help being the children of their parents. Her husband's clear sight had early seen the expediency of concealing from her the radical difference between her view of life and his own. He even felt pleased she should think as she did; it was so much safer, and more ladylike. In his way he grew to be very fond of her, and there was scarcely any friction between them, since, moved by a certain gratitude for the change her money had wrought in his prospects, he gave her free play in everything that did not interfere with his settled plans. Half the said money was already invested in Shunker Dâs's indigo concern, and John Raby was only awaiting its assured success to throw up his appointment and go openly into trade; but of this Belle knew nothing. She had money enough and to spare for all her wishes, and that was sufficient for her; indeed, on the whole, she was happy in the larger interests of her new life. The tragic, poverty-stricken, yet contented lives of the poor around her had a strange fascination for the girl, and the desire to see and understand all that went to make up the pitiful sum-total of their pleasures, led her often, on her solitary