The station was a small one, so the society was limited. The students were rather above the average in ability; in fact there was not a sumf among us. All had passed in the highest grades in school, so we could stand erect with our heads upon our shoulders and act like men. We called on the European families, were invited to their lawn and tennis parties, took our share in the games, or rather more often got up games of our own to enliven our hours of recreation and give pleasure to our friends. During the last year of my course a gentleman, with his wife and daughter, came to reside in the station. The daughter was about eighteen years of age, finely formed, healthy and robust, of blonde complexion, very good looking and to me, handsome. She had passed the giggling stage of girlhood, if she ever had been in it. She was well educated, intelligent and had read a number of good books. From what I have read in English books, from what I have heard and the little I have seen, it appears that most young women and many older ones in society can dress finely, smile, giggle, dance, flirt, look pretty and be or do anything but be sensible. The chief characteristic of this young lady was her sensibleness. She seldom indulged in nonsense, but when she did there was so much wit and real fun in it as to lift it above inanity. I said she was a blonde, so my opposite, for I was rather “soso.” I have heard the story of an Eurasian who in England was with some unsophisticated girls, when one of them innocently remarked, “You are very much tanned, are you not?” “Yes, I am,” said he. “When I was in India I was out a great deal in the sun.” I think this is what has ailed me, or something or other, perhaps the other, had made my complexion the opposite of a blonde. Yet I think being opposite we were attracted to each other for that—well, no matter—what’s the use of surmising? We often met. I tried to talk as intelligently as I could to her, and I think she reciprocated my efforts, for a number of times she mentioned that she had found the books I had referred to and gave me their opinions. I liked her for this. One holiday when we were at a tennis party, a white, or rather a reddish youth, still in the downy stage of adolescence, on a visit in the station was of the party. I was standing a little aside, but heard the youth ask the young lady to be his partner. She replied that she was going to play with Mr. Japhet. “Well,” said he, “if you prefer that Eurasian.” “You have no right to make such a remark as that,” she replied with warmth. It was not prudent for me to appear as if I had heard anything, and her choice of me and her reply helped me to restrain my anger. But I remembered the youth, and why shouldn’t I? He was not yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy; “as a squash before ’tis a peas-cod, or a codling when ’tis almost an apple.”