Transcriber’s Note Italic text displayed as: _italic_ By Mary C. E. Wemyss ORANGES AND LEMONS. IMPOSSIBLE PEOPLE. PRUDENT PRISCILLA. PEOPLE OF POPHAM. Illustrated. THE PROFESSIONAL AUNT. HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY BOSTON AND NEW YORK ORANGES AND LEMONS ORANGES AND LEMONS BY MARY C. E. WEMYSS [Illustration: Decoration] BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY The Riverside Press Cambridge 1919 COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY MARY C. E. WEMYSS ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ORANGES AND LEMONS ORANGES & LEMONS I _The man who lives alone lives long; The bird is not like that, and so—his song._ If a bishop had asked Elsie Carston, “Do you really and truly believe that islands, in far-off seas, were made islands and peopled by black races, solely in order that your brother should govern them, and you—in his absence—govern his children?” Elsie would have looked straight into the eyes of the bishop and would have answered, “I do not”; but she did. If Marcus Maitland had been asked by any one, “Do you really think and believe that God made the hills in India solely for the preservation of the white woman’s complexion? that where He did not make hills He did not mean white women to go?” Marcus would have answered, “I do”; but he did not. So far as Marcus knew, the island chosen for the future education of his brother-in-law, Eustace Carston, in the art of governing might have hills. On the other hand, the faith of some former governor’s wife might have removed them and taken them away with her, there being no limit to the luggaged importance of governors’ wives. Marcus knew because he had travelled. He had been on boats where every one was cramped excepting some governor’s wife and her suite. He had suffered the indignity of a tropical discomfiture in order that she might acquire an importance that was as new to her as was discomfort to him.