“It would not cheer me up to see a cawicature of myself! I don’t think I shall sit to you for my portrait, if that is the sort of thing you do, but you shall show me all your failures. It will amuse me. You will have to come up and see me vewwy often this winter, for I shall be so dull. We have been abroad for the last four years, and England seems so dark and dweawy. Last winter we were at Cairo. We lived in a big hotel, and there was something going on almost every night. I was not out, of course, but I was allowed to go into the room for an hour after dinner, and to dance with the gentlemen in mother’s set. And we went up the Nile in a steamer, and dwove about every afternoon, paying calls, and shopping in the bazaars. It never rains in Cairo and the sun is always shining. It seems so wonderful! Just like a place in a fairy tale.” She looked at Peggy as she spoke, and that young person smiled with an air of elegant condescension. “It would do so to you. Naturally it would. When one has been born in the East, and lived there the greater part of one’s life, it seems natural enough, but the trippers from England who just come out for a few months’ visit are always astonished. It used to amuse us so much to hear their remarks!” Rosalind stared and flushed with displeasure. She was accustomed to have her remarks treated with respect, and the tone of superiority was a new and unpleasing experience. “You were born in the East?” “Certainly I was!” “Where, may I ask?” “In India—in Calcutta, where my father’s regiment was stationed.” “You lived there till you were quite big? You can remember all about it?” “All I want to remember. There was a great deal that I choose to forget. I don’t care for India. England is more congenial to my feelings.” “And can you speak the language? Did you learn Hindostanee while you were there?” “Naturally. Of course I did.” A gasp of amazement came from the two girls in the window, for a knowledge of Hindostanee had never been included in the list of Peggy’s accomplishments, and she was not accustomed to hide her light under a bushel. They gazed at her with widened eyes, and Rosalind scented scepticism in the air, and cried quickly— “Say something then. If you can speak, say something now, and let us hear you.” “Pardon me!” said Peggy simpering. “As a matter of fact I was sent home because I was learning to speak too well. The language of the natives is not considered suitable for English children of tender age. I must ask you to be so kind as to excuse me. I should be sorry to shock your sensibilities.”